TESTIMONY 

of 

JUDGE EMORY SPEER 

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE 
OF THE JUDICIARY 











By wsuwl©* 

MAY 8 1914 



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TESTIMONY OF JUDGE EMORY SPEER 
BEFORE THE SUB-COMMITTEE 
OF THE JUDICIARY. 



V 


4 

V 


It will be observed that Judge Speer and his counsel had 
been more than once informed that no witness would be 
heard by the Committee in his behalf. The investigation 
had been prosecuted by Departmental officers for a period 
of about nine months. The Committee had been holding 
two sessions a day for two weeks. On Friday evening of 
the last week it was intimated by the Chairman to Judge 
Callaway, of counsel for Judge Speer, that the Judge might 
be permitted to testify the next day.. This had not been 
anticipated, and of course Judge Speer had no opportunity 
to make a note, or to refer to a record or document. Never¬ 
theless, he gladly availed himself of the opportunity. In 
point of fact, moreover, he did not definitely know that he 
would be permitted to testify until he was actually directed 
by his counsel to take the stand. Although taken at this 
apparently insuperable disadvantage, it is respectfully sub¬ 
mitted that he frankly and fully met under oath every 
charge to which the questions of his counsel or of the mem¬ 
bers of the Committee relate. It was Saturday morning, 
the last day of the sitting. 

The stenographic record follows: 

The Chairman: Judge Cobb, will you and Mr. Callaway 
come up to the bench, and Mr. Howard? (These gentlemen 
were of counsel for Judge Speer.) 

They did so, and a conference took place. 

The Chairman: This is possibly the conclusion of the 
oral testimony that the Committee wiil call at its present 
sitting in Savannah. Gentlemen, would you like to call 
Judge Speer as a witness in this investigation, and have 
him sworn? 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Chairman, counsel did not know, 
nor did Judge Speer know, until yesterday afternoon, 


2 


that an opportunity would be given him to be sworn; im¬ 
mediately when that information was communicated to him, 
he announced promptly if it was offered to him he wanted 
to avail himself of it. Now necessarily the Committee must 
know that not knowing this, and knowing that we were 
here, and Judge Speer was here, only through the grace and 
courtesy of the Committee, no memoranda have been made 
during the immense amount of testimony taken; and it is 
perfectly impossible for either Judge Speer or all of his coun¬ 
sel together to possibly bear in mind in any oral examina¬ 
tion the thousands of things that have been stated in the 
course of two weeks’ examination. Of course we under¬ 
stand that, and the Committee understands it, and of course 
there are a great many things that it would be improper to 
ask Judge Speer on oral testimony about; there are a great 
many things of a personal nature that have been said that 
can be called to his attention, and he appreciates this oppor¬ 
tunity offered to him by the Committee to go on the stand to 
answer such questions as the Committee may ask, and an¬ 
swer such questions as his counsel may propound to him. 

With that privilege we ask Judge Speer to go to the stand. 

The Chairman: The Judge may have that privilege, and 
be sworn. Of course it is understood, gentlemen, that his 
answers and testimony must be confined to the investiga¬ 
tion, and responsive to the questions asked and propounded 
by counsel for himself and by the Committee. 

Mr. Callaway: The Judge understands it. Take the 
stand, Judge. 

TESTIMONY OF JUDGE EMORY SPEER. 

The Judge was duly sworn by the Chairman. 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Chairman, will the Committee ask 
him the questions first? 

The Chairman: I think it is proper for the Judge’s coun¬ 
sel to ask him such questions as they deem proper. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge Speer, Mr. Akerman, in his tes¬ 
timony at Macon, stated that at Mount Airy in fixing his fee, 


3 


or passing upon objections to his fee in the Oliver case, 
that you raised his fee in consideration of his not objecting 
to the fee which had been allowed to Hawes & Pottle and 
Talley & Heyward, stating that Mr. Heyward, your son-in- 
law, needed the money. Will you state the facts in refer¬ 
ence to that, what occurred at Mount Airy as to that fee? 

Judge Speer: I made no such statement. I do not think 
that any gentleman who knows me believes that counsel 
would have made such a statement to me. There were no 
exceptions to the fees of Messrs. Talley & Heyward; the 
time fixed by the rule had expired; Mr. Akerman could not 
have objected to the fees of Talley & Heyward. The only 
exceptions filed were to his fee. Mr. Akerman, Mr. Mor- 
cock, the court stenographer, who is present, my son-in-law, 
Mr. Heyward, and I, were all in front of the Monterey 
Hotel; we were all sitting in a swing provided for “whisp¬ 
ering lovers”, perhaps—I am.not sure about that—a four- 
seated swing; when Mr. Akerman got through with his 
statement I immediately turned to Mr. Morcock and without 
preliminary word, dictated the opinion which is in the rec¬ 
ord. That is all that was said. 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Akerman states that in 1910 in your 
office in Macon, that you told him, or made the threat to him, 
that if any attorney ever raised the question of your dis¬ 
qualification in any case in which Talley & Heyward had a 
contingent fee, that you would put him in jail; did any such 
conversation between you and Mr. Akerman ever occur? 

Judge Speer: That in 1910? 

Mr. Callaway: That is what he stated here yesterday 
afternoon on the stand? 

Judge Speer: I said no such thing. In both the state¬ 
ments Mr. Akerman made with regard to the Mount Airy 
incident about which you have just inquired, and about this 
incident, there would have been serious reflections upon me 
as judge; and in 1912, two years after the incident last 
mentioned, Mr. Akerman wrote me this: “I desire to say 
that I have the highest regard for you personally as a 
judge, and have always endeavored in every way to show 


4 


you every courtesy, and that respect which is due to your 
high station. I do not mean to say that at times, when 
yielding to resentment or anger, I have not made remarks 
which should not have been made; but I will defy any one 
to truthfully state that I have ever made any remark, or 
statement, which was calculated to in any way injure you, 
either personally or in your official capacity.” 

Mr. Callaway: Did you ever disqualify in matters where 
there was any contest over Talley & Heyward’s fees, or 
anything of that kind? 

Judge Speer: Always. 

Mr. Callaway: I will ask you if you had anything to 
do with the formation of the firm of Talley & Heyward? 

Judge Speer: Nothing whatever. My son-in-law, like 
many other young gentlemen, did not consult me to any 
great extent about his—like many other young gentlemen 
with their fathers-in-law, did not consult me to any great 
extent about his business affairs. 

Mr. Callaway: Did you or not have anything to do with 
postponing the formation of that partnership? 

Judge Speer: I did. 

Mr. Callaway: To what extent? 

Judge Speer: I knew I had to try Messrs. Greene & 
Gaynor. Mr. Talley had been with me for about fourteen 
years; I knew his fidelity and efficiency; I knew what an hon¬ 
orable gentleman he was; that I would require his serv¬ 
ices; that the Government would require them; and I ob¬ 
jected to any engagement he might make in the way of a 
partnership, or otherwise, until that case was ended. As a 
consequence he postponed—he intended, as I learned from 
him, to begin the partnership the first of January, I think 
that was the date; it was postponed until some time in the 
summer after the trial was over. 

Mr. Callaway: It was stated by some witness in Ma¬ 
con that he had been told by another attorney of the Macon 
Bar, that you had prepared or drew the contract of part¬ 
nership between Messrs. Talley & Heyward; state whether 
or not that is a fact? 


5 


Judge Speer: I did not. I knew nothing about it, and 
Mr. Talley tells me there was no written contract. 

Mr. Callaway: Did you ever appoint Mr. Heyward to 
any position in the Federal Courts, or in the bankruptcy 
courts, in the Southern District of Georgia? 

Judge Speer: I am sure I did not. 

Mr. Callaway: A statement was made here yesterday 
that Mr. Lane, the referee at Valdosta, had stated to an 
attorney there that you had requested him to appoint 
Messrs. Talley & Heyward in cases, or to favor them, or 
some expression of that kind. State whether or not there 
was ever any such conversation or intimation between your¬ 
self and Mr. Lane as referee? 

Judge Speer: In the first place that is purely hearsay. 
In the second place I made no such request. There are a 
number of referees in this district. Here is Judge Mac- 
Donell, who lives right here, this is one of the most im¬ 
portant divisions in my district, one of the wealthiest and 
most populous; I think he will testify that never in the fif¬ 
teen years for which he has been referee, have I ever made 
him any such request; and Mr. Heyward was never ap¬ 
pointed by him; that is true also of Mr. Ganahl, in the 
Augusta District, another large and rich district. Had I 
desired to exert myself and promote the fortunes of my 
son-in-law in that way, I am very sure those gentlemen who 
had been appointed by me, would have done all they could 
to have helped him. On the contrary when one of the ref¬ 
erees, Mr. Proudfit, asked if I thought it was improper for 
him to appoint Mr. Heyward, I wrote him that the statute 
was not before me, and he must look to the statute, and de¬ 
termine for himself. The letter is already in evidence be¬ 
fore your Honors. 

I have never thought, however, that because a gentleman 
happens to be related to a judge that that debars him from 
practicing law. I well knew that Judge Samuel Adams, who 
has just vacated this seat, practiced for many years before 
his brother, Judge A. P. Adams—a dear and honored friend 
of mine—that the son of Justice Harlan practiced before 


6 


him; that the son of Judge Newman practiced before him; 
and I might state many other such cases. 

Mr. Callaway: I will ask you this: Did you ever 
knowingly preside in a case where Talley & Heyward had a 
contingent fee without disqualifying? 

Judge Speer: I did not. I am frank to say, though, that 
it is not my custom from the bench, to ask lawyers “what 
sort of a fee have you got in this case?” I never tried a case— 
I never consciously tried a case in which those gentlemen 
had a contingent fee. On the contrary, I did my best to 
prevent such a result, and I once threatened Mr. Talley, if 
he didn’t tell me when he had a contingent fee, I would make 
the question in open court in every case he had. 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Akerman stated yesterday that some 
years ago you told him that Messrs. Erwin & Callaway, a 
firm of lawyers at Macon, had represented your son-in-law, 
Mr. Heyward, in a case in South Carolina, where they had 
received a large fee, and that they had withheld—this is the 
substance—that they withheld that information from you 
for the purpose of having you give them appointment and 
fees and large compensation, that is the idea of it. State 
whether or not any such conversation ever occurred, and 
what were the facts; or that you would never get over it 
with them, or something of that kind, that you would never 
forgive them. 

Judge Speer: I never said that; Messrs. Callaway— 

Mr. Callaway: I believe the expression was that you 
would never forgive them for having concealed from you 
the fact that they had received this large fee in the South 
Carolina case. 

Judge Speer: Messrs. Callaway & Erwin have remained 
my intimate friends. I made no such remark. I prefer, 
however, to make my reply in a letter from Mr. Callaway 
himself, which I received on the 16th of this month by due 
course of mail, just a word: 

“My Dear Judge: You will recall that when I saw you 
in Macon last Monday you told me you had heard it stated 
that one of the charges made against you was that I, at 


7 


your request, had represented your son-in-law, Mr. A. H. 
Heyward, in certain litigation in South Carolina, and to 
compensate me therefor you had appointed me Receiver for 
the Southern Car Company. 

“This charge is palpably false. Such a statement carries 
with it an insult to both of us. First, that you would have 
appointed me Receiver under such conditions; and sec¬ 
ondly, that I could knowingly have accepted such an ap¬ 
pointment under those circumstances. 

“I remember distinctly explaining to you that this bill 
in South Carolina was filed on behalf of the stockholders 
represented by us, and all other stockholders similarly in¬ 
terested, and you naturally understood, under such condi¬ 
tions, that we were entitled to be paid a fee out of the fund 
recovered for all stockholders. Mr. Erwin and I were, in 
fact, paid a reasonable fee by the Granby Cotton Mills for 
the recovery of the amount represented by the settlement. 
This fee was participated in by Mr. Phinizy. ,, 

He refers to Mr. Leonard Phinizy, of Augusta, Ga., who 
is also familiar with the facts. They were paid from the 
fund. 

Mr. Callaway: Was Mr. Callaway appointed in any case 
receiver that you remember about that time, or before or 
after—how about the Georgia Car Company? 

Judge Speer: I several times availed myself of the abil¬ 
ity of Mr. Callaway. He is one of tha ablest men for that 
sort of work I ever knew; he is now employed by all of the 
railroads to represent them in rate matters, and his home is 
in Washington, D. C. He is a wonderfully fine accountant, 
a man of fine integrity. I employed him in the, I think it is 
the Savannah Car Works case. 

Mr. Callaway: What does he say about that? 

Judge Speer (reading) : “With regard to the appointment 
as Receiver for the Southern Car & Foundry Co., at Savan¬ 
nah, my recollection is that this appointment was made in the 
latter part of 1903, or early in 1904. Bankruptcy proceedings 
were filed against this company by Major W. B. Stevens, 
of Savannah. Major Stevens and I were boys together, and 


8 


I asked him at the time how it happened that I was ap¬ 
pointed receiver. My recollection is he stated that when he 
presented the petition you asked about the appointment of 
several different parties. There were some objections made 
to the ones named, and the statement was made to you that 
on account of the large indebtedness of the company and 
the many varying interests at Savannah, an appointment 
froln outside of Savannah would be satisfactory, and that 
you, thereupon, suggested my name to Major Stevens. He 
expressed himself as pleased on account of our personal 
relations, and I was appointed. 

“To the best of my recollection, the foregoing was related 
to me by Major Stevens. I am not altogether clear just 
what was said by him, but I am sure he himself will recall 
just what took place. I do know, however, that nothing 
was said to me by you as to your having appointed me on 
account of my connection with the South Carolina cases, 
or for any reason of that sort.” 

Mr. Callaway: Can you recall whether or not the fees 
as allowed by the Master in that case were reduced by you? 

Judge Speer: Mr. Callaway so states in his letter. (Judge 
Speer, reading) “My recollection is that I asked for $5,000. 
Major Stevens was not present, but my recollection is he 
telegraphed the Master that he thought the services were 
worth that amount. I think, perhaps, Mr. Henry C. Cun¬ 
ningham, who represented a number of the largest creditors, 
concurred in my request for this sum.” 

“The Master,” who, I believe, was Mr. Anton P. Wright 
—I am not sure about that, “allowed me a lesser sum”—(I 
know I was in the habit of helping that young gentleman 
all I could in those days.) “The Master allowed me a lesser 
sum, I think $4,000, or perhaps $4,500. You, however, did 
not confirm the Masters’ report, but reduced the amount 
allowed by the Master to about $3,200, although no objec¬ 
tions were filed to the report. The exact amounts can be 
easily ascertained by reference to the Masters’ report.” 

That was a case of grave consequence, large amounts, 
and the services of Mr. Callaway were of the greatest value. 


9 


Mr. Callaway: Something has been said here about the 
employment of Mr. Isaac by Mr. White in the Daniels case, 
as attorney for Mr. White as receiver, and the resignation 
of Mr. Isaac as referee, and about the same time the for¬ 
mation of the partnership of Isaac & Heyward. State 
whether or not you had anything to do with the formation 
of that partnership? 

Judge Speer: Nothing whatever. 

Mr. Callaway: State whether or not you had anything 
to do directly or indirectly with the employment of Mr. 
Isaac by Mr. White, the receiver in that case? 

Judge Speer: Nothing. 

Mr. Callaway: Were you consulted about it before the 
appointment was made? 

Judge Speer: I do not remember; but it was my uni¬ 
form practice not to interfere with the members of the pro¬ 
fession in its honors or emoluments. In no order, except in 
special instances, did I authorize the employment of partic¬ 
ular counsel. I authorized the receiver or the trustee, if 
he made application in writing, to employ counsel, but I left 
it to his discretion to indicate who those counsel should be. 
Now, I recall in one or two cases where special services 
really of a particularly skillful character were needed, I 
suggested the employment of particular counsel. 

There was the Plant bankruptcy case, where a million 
dollars was recovered for the creditors, over a million dol¬ 
lars, where the estate was supposed to be absolutely worth¬ 
less, and where I knew we needed such capacity as Mr. 
Erwin showed in the Greene and Gaynor transactions, 
when he would take a few notes in brokers’ offices of sales 
of stock, and work out facts by which he recovered three- 
quarters of a million of dollars of stolen money. I knew 
that he had that ability, and Mr. Callaway was associated 
with him, and I suggested to Mr. Corbin, the receiver, that 
it would be a good thing for the creditors in that case, that - 
he should employ Erwin & Callaway. 

I have a standing rule of my court that counsel for the 
petitioning creditors in bankruptcy shall not be employed 


10 


as counsel for the receivers or trustees, whom I treat as 
stakeholders, except by order of the court, and in a few 
cases, where the receivers or trustees have made applica¬ 
tion for the employment of particular counsel, I have varied 
that rule, and by express order authorized the employment 
of such counsel. 

Mr. Callaway: I will ask you your version—Mr. Aker- 
man has stated his version of the falling out between you 
and himself something, like a year and a half ago, or a 
couple of years ago, with reference to his appointment as 
District Attorney. Please state—you heard his testimony 
in Macon on that subject—I would like for you to state the 
original reasons of the disagreement between you and Mr. 
Akerman. 

Judge Speer: It is rather a long and rather a painful 
story, but I will state it in a few words. 

Mr. C.allaway: I will ask you just to confine it to the 
main causes, just a statement of them? 

Judge Speer: Mr. Akerman, it seems, differed with me 
upon three or four questions which I thought involved the 
policy of the law, and the great principles of morality upon 
which the welfare of the people depended. 

In the first place, I was in favor of enforcing the internal 
revenue law, where a large discretion is allowed the judge, 
from one month, say, to two years imprisonment, and from 
$100 to $1,000 fine, in such manner that I could aid the 
people of the State in the effort to enforce the laws they 
were making in favor of temperance. Everybody knows 
how important that is in the South, where, if liquor is dis¬ 
tributed among our African population, we are subjected 
to danger of those crimes which infuriate the people and 
result in lynchings, and all sorts of depredations. That I 
thought to be my duty. Mr. Akerman, I soon felt, allied 
himself with the liquor interests. In the first place, he in¬ 
sisted upon nol pnossing a number of cases that I thought 
ought not to be nol prossed. He stated that it was obliga¬ 
tory on me to nol pross these cases. The first case was that 
of a man named Wilkes; the question came up before me, I 


11 


referred to the statute and told him I doubted if that case 
ought to be nol grossed. He said I had no option, because 
the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Attorney- 
General had agreed that the case should be compromised. I 
looked to the statute; I judicially held, whether erroneously 
or otherwise, that that power in the Commissioner of In¬ 
ternal Revenue and in the Attorney-General related to 
criminal actions or criminal suits, and that an indictment 
was neither an action nor a suit. I therefore felt that it 
was my duty as judge to object to the nol grossing of those 
cases. Mr. Akerman grew very angry, and went to the clerk 
and gave him a long list of cases, ten or twelve, how many 
I do not precisely remember, stating to him that he would 
show him how to nol pross cases over the head of the judge, 
or words to that effect. Among these cases were one or 
more keepers of disorderly houses of the most degrading 
character, where liquor was sold to increase the debauch¬ 
ery practiced there. The clerk had heard my ruling in open 
court, and declined to obey the direction of Mr. Akerman. 
Mr. Akerman then in further correspondence and further 
communications with the clerk threatened that officer if 
he didn’t enter those cases as nol prossed. He maintained 
his attitude; I mjaintained mine; the cases have not been 
prosecuted; they have not been nol prossed ; they will prob¬ 
ably be tried if I remain judge, and Mr. Akerman does not 
remain district attorney. 

Mr. Callaway. Any other differences arise between you 
and Mr. Akerman? 

Judge Speer: Very grave differences arose about his 
representation of the railroads. Mr. Akerman was a very 
needy man when I first appointed him referee in bank¬ 
ruptcy. I cannot say, as Sidney Smith said of Jeffries, that 
his intellect was indecently exposed, but his body almost 
was. 

Mr. Callaway: Come down to the cause of the other 
difference about the railroads. 

Judge Speer: What? 

Mr. Callaway: You stated there was a difference be- 


12 


tween you and Mr. Akerman with reference to the rail¬ 
roads, state what that was. 

Judge Speer: Why, Mr. Akerman had never had any 
great railroad practice—I do not recall that he had ever 
had but one case in the United States Court—but very 
shortly after his appointment as district attorney—by the 
great Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which traverses my 
district in many directions, Mr. Akerman was retained in 
all of its cases in the United States Court. I cautioned him 
that he could not serve two masters; I had high authority 
for that; but he disregarded what I said. I did not fall out 
with Mr. Akerman; as he told the Committee; he had 
named his boy for me, he still bears the name of Emory 
Speer, which Mr. Akerman is now seeking to dishonor and 
disgrace. 

I did my best to make Mr. Akerman do his duty. These 
conferences between us were private, but they were fre¬ 
quent, and finally this case came on at Valdosta; it was a 
suit for the recovery of $2,000 penalties, brought by Mr. 
Akerman’s client, the United States, against Mr. Akerman’s 
client, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, because they had 
twenty cars upon which there were dangerous and imper¬ 
fect safety appliances, not in accordance with the law. Mr. 
Akerman had shortly before made propositions for the set¬ 
tlement of such cases; I am informed that he first submitted 
the the Interstate Corhmerce Commission a direction to set¬ 
tle that case for $600, which they turned down, then for 
$1,600, which they turned down— 

Mr. Callaway: I would not state about the information. 

Judge Speer: There has been a great deal of other in¬ 
formation given during these two weeks. 

Mr. Callaway. I know. What other difficulties—what 
other class of cases came before your courts? 

Judge Speer: That case; when that case came on, as 
Mr. Akerman himself told the Committee, he was “neutral.” 
I did not feel that the district attorney of the United States 
ought to be neutral, and leave the Government’s case to a 
moribund assistant, who afterwards died, and to a boy 


13 


almost, a boy from Washington City,* who had been sent 
out here by the Interstate Commerce Commission; and I 
called Mr. Akerman, as he had admitted to others, into my 
chamber and protested against his neglect of his duty to the 
Government; he walked out of the court-room; the case had 
been prepared in the most slovenly manner; the necessary 
orders for the production of papers showing the interstate 
character of the traffic carried by those railroads had not 
been produced, and it was only because Mr. Talley volun¬ 
tarily brought those papers into court that the court was 
enabled to have them produced in evidence before the jury. 

A great deal was said, I understand, on that subject yes¬ 
terday; but if I said “voluntarily’" in my order, I meant to 
say that Mr. Talley voluntarily brought in the papers, and 
the court did the rest; the court made him produce them; 
and that is the Georgia law and the Georgia practice as 
settled by repeated decisions of our Supreme Court. Mr. 
Akerman took no part in that case. 

Mr. Callaway: Was there any other class of cases 
which the Government was prosecuting, about which you 
and Mr. Akerman differed? You have spoken of the liquor 
cases and the railroads? 

Judge Speer: I did not feel that Mr. Akerman was 
quite faithful in the latter days of the prosecution of the 
Naval Stores Trust. He came to me and suggested that I 
disqualify myself in that case, that is on the bill filed by the 
Government to dissolve the trust, and there are other inci¬ 
dents which finally led me to write a letter to the President 
of the United States, which is here, in which I stated that 
I was entitled in these grave cases upon which so much de¬ 
pended to a district attorney who would perform his labors 
with an eye single to his duties. I have the letter here of 
the President thanking me for that letter, and stating that 
he would refer it to the Attorney-General; and I have the 
letter of the Attorney-General, that is by Mr. Fowler repre¬ 
senting him, stating that he had received the letter from 
the President, and also giving me his thanks. I was only 

*Judge Speer changes the word boy to “a very young man.” 



14 


acting, not with any view to injure Mr. Akerman—I didn’t 
ask his removal, or anything of that sort, I was only asking 
that he should be made to perform his duty with an eye 
single to that duty. The letter will show for itself, if the 
Committee will permit me to read it. 

Mr. Callaway: In the Scarboro case, some statement 
has been made that after the jury was charged in the mid¬ 
dle of the day, in the afternoon you instructed the marshal 
to keep the jury walking, so as to prevent them from reach¬ 
ing a verdict, and that subsequently, I think after supper 
that night, you declared a mistrial. 

Judge Speer: The facts about it are that I always try 
to exercise the juries; that jury had been confined for four 
or five days—how long I do not remember—and late in the 
day, I had taken my exercise, I had gone to ride with my 
wife, and come back; I was solicitous to protect the jury 
from any improper influence, I saw an automobile full of 
charming ladies, including the wife of the defendant, right 
under the window, and the jury looking out of the window, 
and I managed to get that fascinating aggregation removed; 
and then I told the marshal to take the jury for a walk be¬ 
fore supper; that I always dfd; I did that in the three 
months and ten days of the Green and Gaynor case, and in 
every other case where I had the jury locked up. And that 
was all I said about walking. 

Now, about the mistrial. After supper, the jury were 
brought back. I had before that sent word to the jury, as 
is our Georgia practice, by the marshal—the sheriff does it 
in the State courts, the marshal in the United States courts 
—to ask the foreman whether they had agreed on a verdict, 
or were likely to agree? I again got a reply that they 
not only had not agreed, but that they never would agree. 
I then went into my chamber, and called for Mr. Talley, who 
was of counsel for the defense; I called for Mr. Akerman, 
and for Mr. Smith, the treasury agent. They all three 
came in there. This was a very young man, his offense was 
largely technical, and the case had been very thoroughly 
tried. I saw the jury was not going to agree. I knew the 


15 


object of the law was to compel obedience to the law, and 
I said to these gentlemen, “Do you not think”—particularly 
to Akerman and Smith, the treasury agent—“that the ends 
of justice will be accomplished if a mistrial is declared?” 
They both assented in the presence of Mr. Talley. I then 
went back into the room, and made to the jury one of those 
little speeches which have been so unfavorably commented 
upon by Messrs. Osborn and Lawrence, et id omne genus, 
in which I told them that I thought that the ends of justice 
had been accomplished by the trial; the people were in¬ 
formed as to the national banking law; that a jury of high 
credit had refused to agree, and probably would not agree, 
and that a mistrial should be declared, and in my view 
of the case the district attorney and the treasury agent 
agreed. The district attorney and the treasury agent 
were present, and neither one dissented. 1 then ordered the 
mistrial. And then it was tried over again before Judge 
Grubb at a subsequent term, with precisely the same result, 
save that the judge kept the jury together, I am informed, 
for four or five days, but could not make them reach any 
different conclusion. 

Mr. Callaway: You heard the testimony of Col. Sim¬ 
mons in Macon, and Gen. Meldrim here, with reference to a 
loan of $1,200 made to you by the late Mr. H. H. King, who 
was for many years clerk of this court? I will ask you to 
state what were the. facts in reference to that loan as origi¬ 
nally made, and of the payment, whether there ever was 
another loan between you and Mr. King, or any other officer 
of the court? 

Judge Speer: That was the only financial transaction 
between Mr. King and myself. I had not been long out of 
politics. I was pretty heavily indebted; the Committee will 
know how prosperous the occupation of a Congressman is; 
I had been four years in Congress; my salary was then 
only about $3,600; my friend, Mr. Lynch, who owned the 
old Hartridge house up here, charged me $900 a year rent; 
I had over a thousand dollars insurance and taxes to pay; 
that left me about $1,600 to support a wife and five growing 


16 


children, all girls; I was necessitous; Mr. Erwin knows the 
facts, because he had a talk with King about it; King went 
to Mr. Erwin and told him he knew the judge was hard up, 
and he had some money to lend, and he would give every 
dollar to the judge at a low rate of interest. He did so. I 
borrowed the money in 1886, if I remember the date cor¬ 
rectly, at six per cent, interest. I thought I could pay it at 
$50 a month, or $150 a quarter, and the note so specified. 
Eut the installments were not paid. Well, it rocked along 
without—it was a demand note; I would have paid it or 
made an effort to pay it any time he called for it. And 
finally one day I called upon Mr. King to perform the first 
official duty, public official duty he had ever performed as 
clerk. That was to swear a jury, I think; he got up and 
chortled so that he made everybody in the court-room 
laugh; he couldn’t articulate, and I made some remark, per¬ 
haps not altogether free from sarcasm, and Mr. King got 
mad with me and told Mr. Erwin that if I treated him that 
way he would demand his money. He pretty soon de¬ 
manded it. I wrote to Messrs. Charlton & Mackall imme¬ 
diately to calculate the interest and draw on me; I had then 
removed to Macon because of the high cost of living in 
Savannah, draw on me for the money, that the money 
awaited the draft. They did so, they instantly drew, and 
I paid the draft. The draft, my letter, the note are all in 
evidence. 

Mr. Callaway: Was that money taken from the registry 
of the court? 

Judge Speer: No, sir. 

Mr. Callaway: Could that have been done ? 

Judge Speer: No money is ever taken from the reg¬ 
istry of the court except by an order of the judge, or a de¬ 
cree of the judge, directing that a check be drawn, a check 
drawn in pursuance of that order. 

No money was ever taken from the registry of the court 
except by order of the court, or of the judge, directing that 
a check be drawn, and the check was drawn in conformance 
with that order. (Now, on the subject of the Merchants 


17 


National Bank, a bank the doors of which I have never in 
my life entered; I was satisfied that Mr. Erwin, who was the 
clerk of the District Court and deputy clerk of the Circuit 
Court, and who, with all of his skill as an accountant and 
bookkeeper, and with all of his integrity, kept the accounts 
of the Court, and knows, and Mr. Owens, the Standing Mas¬ 
ter, knew that I never drew one dollar from the registry 
of the Court.”) * 

Mr. Callaway: Wasn’t that registry of the court sub¬ 
ject to inspection by the government, from time to time? 

Judge Speer: Why, of course, and almost every term 
of court I ordered an inspection of it, and a report by the 
Standing Master, Mr. Owens, one of my counsel, but never¬ 
theless, a man of high integrity. 

Mr. Callaway: Something was said about that money 
having been cost money that Col. Simmons, counsel for the 
New England Mortgage Security Company, had deposited 
with Mr. King, the Clerk. 

Judge Speer: I knew nothing about that. I did not 
know where Mr. King got the money, except as to the 
$492 which he sent me in a draft, I think, on Wheeling, 
W. Va., from Bethany, W. Va. That letter is in evidence. 
I know I never borrowed any money knowing that it was 
cost money. I think then, if I am not mistaken, that the 
cost money was never placed in the registry of the court. 

Mr. Callaway: Col. Simmons testified that he had 
brought a large number of suits for the New England Mort- 


*As to the matter included in the parenthesis mark on this page, 
Judge Speer submits that his testimony is incorrectly reported. What 
he said was this: 

“It so happens that I have never in my life entered the doors of 
the Merchants National Bank, in this City, which was the registry of 
the court. And I will say to the Committee, there sits (indicating f 
Mr. Marion Erwin, who was at the time I borrowed this money from 
King, Clerk of the District Court and Deputy Clerk of the Circuit 
Court, who through his skill as an accountant and bookkeeper, and 
with his integrity, kept the accounts of the court. And there sits 
Mr. George W. Owens, the Standing Master in Chancery, who, although 
one of mv counsel, is a man of high honor. At almost every term he 
was required by order to examine and'report upon the accounts of the 
Clerk in the registry. Botn of these gentlemen know and will testify 
that never in my life did I touch one dollar of the funds in the regis¬ 
try of the court.” 



18 


gage Security Company against various people in Georgia, 
in the United States Court, and that he, on account of your 
conduct towards him, your tyranny and antagonism, dis¬ 
missed those suits and withdrew something like $2,000, I 
believe he said, in costs; what do you know about that alle¬ 
gation or that litigation in your court? ' 

Judge Speer: I know that the Corbin Banking Com¬ 
pany was exacting the most usurious interest from the Geor¬ 
gia farmers and lending money on three times the value of 
the loan, on the best lands in this State. I knew that they 
charged 20 per cent, commission, in addition to 8 per cent., 
which is the highest rate of legal interest. The question 
came before me in the case of Sherwood against Rountree, 
and is reported in the Federal Reporter, I forgot the page 
(32 Fed., p. 113), and afterwards in the case of the New 
England Security Company against Gay. 

Mr. Callaway: Was that one of Col. Simmons’ cases? 

Judge Speer: I think both of them were. No, I am not 
sure about Sherwood against Rountree, but I am sure that 
Col. Simmons was leading counsel in the case against Gay. 
Gay was a farmer from Schley County. He had pledged 
over $30,000 worth of splendid plantation land to secure a 
loan of $8,000, and it cost that old man $1,750 to borrow 
$8,000 for five years.* That issue was brought before me on 
proper pleadings. The question was tried out fully by able 
lawyers, one of whom was Col. N. J. Hammond, who served 
in Congress with me, former Attorney-General of the State, 
I think, who was associated with Mr. Simmons. I think the 
Hon. Dupont Guerry, District Attorney, was one of counsel 
for the defense. I charged the jury to look into the char¬ 
acter of the transaction; the money-lender in New York con¬ 
tending that the borrower signed a written stipulation that 
the local agent, like Simmons or somebody else, who loaned 
the money, was the agent of the borrower. I charged the 
jury to look through the form to the substance, and if they 
found that the local agent had kept books with the New 

*See New England Security Co. vs. Gay, 33 Fed., p. 636, et seq as to 
20 per cent, reserved. See p. 643-4, Judge Speer especially invokes 
attention to facts in that case. 



19 


York concern and reported to them monthly, he really was 
their agent, and that it was for the jury to determine 
whether he was the agent of the borrower or the agent of 
the lender, and if he was the agent of the lender, that 20 
per cent, commission, in addition to the legal interest, might 
be held as usury. The jury so found, and instead of it 
being my arbitrary, despotic conduct that made Mr. Sim¬ 
mons dismiss his case, it was because he found out that I 
would not enforce those usurious contracts which were ruin¬ 
ing the people of my State. 

Mr. Callaway: Several witnesses have testified, Judge 
Speer, about your using messengers, criers, bailiffs and 
court officers as your personal and family servants; what 
have you got to say about that? 

Judge Speer: I have this to say, that I have had the most 
kindly and cordial relations with a number of those officers. 
They have always performed all their duties to the govern¬ 
ment they were called upon to perform. Several of them, 
after their duties of the day are performed, go with me to 
my home and sometimes render me some service of one kind 
or another, and I, for those services, give them their board; 
I generally give them a home on my place, fire, light and 
compensate them fully for all the personal services they 
render me; and all of them would so testify if they had the 
opportunity.* 

Now, take the case of Mell McCoy. Mr. Akerman, in his 
statement to the Attorney-General, which has been furnished 
my counsel, stated that he was a good North Carolina man, 
but he could not learn to open court in five years. I don’t 
think that was just to a North Carolinian; particularly as I 
myself am lineally descended from a Governor of North 
Carolina. He is really, while a plain man, a very intelligent, 
courageous mountaineer. 

Mr. Callaway: Has Mell ever been a servant in your 
family? 

Judge Speer: In a sense, no. He is more of a friend and 
companion than a servant. Mell is a horse-trader by pro- 

*Jude:e Speer did not mean to testify that these officers went to his 
home at the same time. 



20 


fession. The Latin adage, “Gaudet in equis et canibus” 
applies; he delights in horses and dogs. We hunt together, 
we ride together. I have given him his riding suit, and his 
leggings. He rides a rather finer horse than I do, because 
he is a younger man and can control him better. When the 
nightfall comes, Mell comes into my study and we sit to¬ 
gether and read the newspapers, and sometimes I read him 
novels, to his great delight. I was reading one to Mell by 
Chas. Neville Buck, of the Kentucky mountains and feudist 
wars, when I left home. I believe it was called “The Battle 
Line,” or something of that sort, and I hope to finish it with 
him when this trial is over. He is my companion and friend. 
I have given him his clothing for years. When his wife was 
sick and he was unable to pay her expenses at the hospital, 
I paid them for him. When he was with me in Athens, dur¬ 
ing my sickness, I paid his board, and have the receipt for 
it, $40.00. When he got behind at the Reeves House, I 
paid that board for him, and have the receipt. I first got 
his boy admitted into the public schools. I have loaned him 
two or three hundred dollars at different times, and I never 
expect to ask him for the return of the loans. Those are 
the barbarous and unlawful relations existing between Mell 
McCoy and myself. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge, what number of servants do you 
keep in your household? 

Judge Speer: I believe we have four now. There is 
Uncle Jim and Aunt Mandy, and Ella—well, I have got 
Mell’s boy in my employ now; Lemuel is his name. He quit 
school and he is helping. I have four there. 

Mr. Callaway: Who certifies as to the performance of 
these officers—these bailiffs, criers and deputies in the 
court? 

Judge Speer: Well, now, I want the Committee to under¬ 
stand that I cannot say that these people are about the court 
all of the time, because I have too much to attend to to 
watch the bailiffs. They may go across the street and get a 
drink, for all I know, and they may stay too long. They may 
absent themselves while I am trying a case, but I see them 
about the court every day, these various officers. 


21 


Mr. Callaway: Who looks after checking them up? 

Judge Speer: It is the duty of the marshal, primarily, 
and it is the duty of the District Attorney to approve the 
accounts of the marshal. When they are presented to me, 
I do not approve them, until I see the sworn statement of 
the marshal and the approval of the District Attorney. 
When I see that, then I sign the order directing the pay¬ 
ment of the account. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge Speer, something has been said 
about your conduct in the E. B. Harris bankruptcy case in 
Macon, about your arbitrary conduct there in refusing a 
settlement or a compromise or something, and about the 
publishing of an opinion, friction with Mr. Simmons of 
The News. 

Judge Speer: That whole transaction, I think, would be 
creditable to any Judge, even to me. There was a suit for 
specific performance pending between Henry and Harris, 
involving a valuable corner lot right in the heart of the 
business section of Macon, cat-a-cornered across the street 
from the Dempsey Hotel, where your Honors stopped. Henry 
had only paid $1,000 on his contract. Harris was fighting 
it. He had won in the State Courts, Harris had, and the 
bill was brought anew in the United States Court. Mr. Tal¬ 
ley, the Standing Master, had reported, it is true, in favor 
of Henry. Then Harris went into bankruptcy. The ques¬ 
tion of bankruptcy intervening, it occurred to me that it was 
the duty of the court to pay the equity of Henry in this 
propery, which was worth about $65,000—pay him the 
$1,000, all the interest that he had in it, with perhaps rea¬ 
sonable interest, and subject the balance of this valuable 
asset to the claims of the creditors. Mr. Akerman repre¬ 
sented the trustee. The trustee, a kindly gentleman, a demo¬ 
crat, like most all of my officers, was not unwilling to lay 
his hands upon the funds involved in the settlement. Mr. 
Akerman also seemed desirous to bring about the settle¬ 
ment. I think first $2,000 was proposed, and then $4,000 
was proposed. Mr. Akerman came into my office and sub¬ 
mitted a proposition. I took down the authorities, I re^ 


22 


member one was the Marthinson (150 Fed., p. 49) case 
which was decided here, in which it was held that the appli¬ 
cation for a specific performance was addressed to the dis¬ 
cretion of the court. Holding that to be the law, and then 
seeing that the complainant in the specific performance case 
would be protected from loss by directing the Trustee to pay 
him the value of his equity, I determined to decline the set¬ 
tlement. Well, that night, Mr. McNeill, who was with Mr. 
Akerman in promoting that settlement—the Mr. McNeill 
who has been described to you as a kinsman of mine,—came 
out to my house and told me that he wished to dismiss his 
application, and he stated that he wished to do so to pre¬ 
vent me from filing an opinion in the case. Well, I began 
to think about it. Why did he want me not to file an opinion ? 
I concluded that he did not want me to file an opinion so 
as to keep the creditors ignorant of their rights in that val¬ 
uable property. I, therefore, wrote out what I intended to be 
an official statement from the court as to my views. Mr. 
T. J. Simmons struck off the heading of it which destroyed 
its official character and published it as a news item. Then, 
when the case came on to be tried, Mr. McNeill and Mr. 
Felton Hatcher, who was associated with him, attempted to 
disqualify me under Sec. 21 of the new Judicial Code, upon 
the ground that I had prejudged the matter. I had only 
prejudged it tentatively and as a matter of law. Their affi¬ 
davit did not allege any personal bias, and the Statute re¬ 
quires an averment of personal bias. Therefore, in a care¬ 
fully prepared opinion, I held the affidavit insufficient, and 
counsel took the order—no, they refused to proceed, and 
counsel took an order dismissing the case for want of prose¬ 
cution. I signed it. It was taken to the Circuit Court of 
Appeals. I was sustained on the merits of the case, but the 
Circuit Court of Appeals held that it was error to dismiss 
the case for want of prosecution and directed me to go for¬ 
ward. Then the property was sold and, instead of getting 21 
cents on the dollar, which would have resulted in the com¬ 
position offered by Harris, the creditors got 35 cents on the 
dollar, and there is ten cents more to be paid; so these gen- 


23 


eral creditors got 45 cents on the dollar because of my 
action, and all of the liens on the property were discharged. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge Speer, Mr. Barnes, who was for¬ 
merly marshal of this district, testified that on one occasion 
you were paying him as receiver in some case, and that you 
said: “What is there in it for me?” Or, “What do I get?” 
Do you recall making any such statement to Mr. Barnes at 
any time? 

Judge Speer: I recall a statement which Mr. Barnes may 
have construed that way, but he is very widely in error. Mr. 
Barnes is somewhat of a literary man, and he ought to recall 
what I said. When he came in to me, and I gave him this 
fee, which he said was a large one, I narrated an instance in 
the life of Lord Chatham, the first Pitt, when he was ap¬ 
pointed paymaster of the forces. Previously it had been the 
custom of the paymasters to keep a large sum, say, 500,000 
pounds, deposited, and to collect interest on that deposit and 
appropriate it to their own use. Pitt, when first appointed 
paymaster, discontinued that, and when some one commented 
on these large sums going through his hands and he get¬ 
ting no benefit from it, he held up his hands and said: 
“None of it sticks.” Your Honors will find that in the life of 
Lord Chatham. That is what I said to Mr. Barnes, and that 
is what his malevolent mind has construed to be an offer on 
my part to accept a bribe from him. But you have heard 
what Mr. Akerman told you about Mr. Barnes and his gen¬ 
eral character. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge Speer, in the Beach case, some 
question has arisen here about the order that was finally 
passed at Macon on the hearing there about dismissing the 
receivership, the words “by consent,” being added; I want 
you to look at that order (handing paper) and state who 
put the words “by consent” in writing there, and when they 
were put there. 

Judge Speer: I did it, and I did it before I signed the 
decree. The order itself shows that it was before I 
signed, the parties themselves saying to the contrary, not¬ 
withstanding. I did it in open court. 


24 


Mr. Callaway: Well, wasn’t this presented to you in your 
chambers after court was over with? 

Judge Speer: Well, it may be that it was in my chamb¬ 
ers, but it was in open court for equity purposes all the 
same. It was not at chambers. The court was in session. 
Counsel were present. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge Speer, a good deal has been said 
here about your trying cases and holding your court at Tox- 
away and trying cases at Mount Airy. When was it you 
held court at Toxaway; do you remember the year and what 
was the occasion of such business being tried there? 

Judge Speer: Why, that was the Green and Gaynor year. 
All the business of the court had been banked up for three 
months and ten days; a large part of which would have ordi¬ 
narily been disposed of. My docket was congested, and I, 
therefore, sought to induce counsel to come up there. They 
were willing enough to come; nobody objected, that I ever 
heard of. 

Mr. Callaway: What was the condition of your health 
at the conclusion of the Green and Gaynor case? 

Judge Speer: Why, I was pretty badly broken down. 
While I was at Toxaway that year, I had the first of those 
terrible attacks of which I had a repetition last year, and 
which, I think, was the result of excessive labor and anxiety 
of that great trial. But let me say that that trial established 
a precedent for the protection of the public Treasury which 
has never been surpassed in the annals of our jurisprudence. 

Mr. Callaway: A great deal has been said about your 
absenting yourself from your district every year; state the 
occasion of that. 

Judge Speer: Well, the Committee can take the minutes 
of court, and they will see that I averaged over two hundred 
days a year actually in open court. Add the eight holidays 
and fifty-two Sundays and that leaves me a rather limited 
vacation. Every judge is entitled to a vacation, so far as 
I know, and I go off on my vacation, but I am unhappily 
afflicted in another respect. I have what Daniel Webster 
called his “autumnal catarrh.” That is the hay fever which 


25 


Sidney Smith said would make him sneeze if a dissenter 
came within one hundred yards of him. It is highly suffocat¬ 
ing, and if I attempted to stay in the district, it would result 
in asthma and suffocation. The last time I tried to stay in 
middle Georgia was in 1884, when I was District Attorney 
in Atlanta, and I was full of general practice. One after¬ 
noon, I remember I was reading one of Lever’s novels, and 
suddenly I could not keep my attention on the book, and in 
a few seconds I was suffocated. A physician was sent for, 
and I actually lost consciousness from suffocation. I have 
to go away on account of hay fever. It comes on me about 
the 21st of August each year and lasts until the frost has 
killed the pollen of those growths which are said by scien¬ 
tists to be the aggravating cause. In my case, I think it is 
rag-weed. 

Mr. Callaway: There was another matter about the 
Beach case that I neglected to ask you about, and that I 
think I should. A statement was made here by a witness 
yesterday in the Beach case that after you had written a 
letter, either to Judge Bardee or to Judge McCormick, dis¬ 
qualifying in that case, that you still entertained adminis¬ 
trative orders, after Judge Bardee or Judge McCormick 
had referred the matter to Judge Newman, and one of the 
attorneys in that case came down to Mount Airy to see you 
in reference to it, and you became very angry about the 
question of disqualification, and I believe in that connection 
he stated that you told Mr. Talley to “shut up,” when he said 
something to you. Will you please state what occurred 
there ? 

Judge Speer: Why, I did pass some administrative 
orders which did not involve litigated or judicial functions, 
after I held myself disqualified on the main case, which was 
the question of adjudication in bankruptcy, for the conven¬ 
ience of the officers of court, without requiring them to go 
to a distant judge. I did pass some administrative orders 
such as authorizing them to cut cross-ties from dead timber 
and sell them so as to feed the poor starving mules. I aft¬ 
erwards enlarged that so as to authorize them to cut some 


26 


cross-ties from green timber, and that excited my friend 
Mr. Talley, who was on the other side, and he came up there 
to me with a very vigorous protest. I told him I did not want 
to pass on that controversy. He presented a controversy 
with the agent of the receiver, or with the receiver. He was 
the man who was angry. He said: “You passed an order 
for Tucker/’ meaning the agent of the receiver, “And I 
don’t see why you can’t pass one for me.” Instead of get¬ 
ting angry with him I invited him to dinner. I did not, how¬ 
ever, invite Mr. Padgett. 

Mr. Callaway: Now, Judge Speer, the two peonage cases 
testified to here by Mr. Felder, tried by him in Macon, I 
forgot the names of those cases. 

Judge Speer: The first was the Branen case, and the 
second the Chauncey case. There were two Branens and 
there were some other people indicted with Chauncey, I do 
not remember their names. 

Mr. Callaway: Now, Mr. relder says that in the Chaun¬ 
cey case you were very discourteous to him and you stopped 
him repeatedly in his argument and would not allow him 
to make a consecutive argument to the jury. 

Judge Speer: Well, in that case, Mr. Felder, who had 
been elected Attorney-General of this State was making 
the grossest appeals to race prejudice. All of us down here 
have to protect ourselves against race prejudice. The 
judge on the bench is exasperated by the colored man just 
about as much as anybody else. It is not hard to get up 
race prejudice. He was making the grossest appeals to 
race prejudice. Mr. Erwin, acting as Assistant United States 
Attorney-General, got up and objected. I sustained Mr. 
Erwin’s objection, but the main offense of Mr. Felder was in 
his concluding argument. I wish very much you could get 
me an extract from the record, so I can read it to the Com¬ 
mittee. You could see how justifiable was my action. 

Mr. Callaway: I have not got it here. 

Judge Speer: If the Committee will allow me to put it in, 
I will be very much obliged—to put it in evidence. 

Mr. Callaway: Now, Mr. Felder also complained of your 
method of drawing the jury in that case, in one or both of 


27 


those cases, in which you directed the marshal to draw 
them from a list outside of the box, or, rather, the marshal 
did it; will you explain that? 

Judge Speer: Well, my recollection is that we had juries 
in attendance. I knew the importance of this case, and I 
directed the marshal to draw tales jurors, which is the ordi¬ 
nary practice. 

Mr. Callaway: To draw them from the list? 

Judge Speer: No man is allowed to serve in my court 
unless his name is in the jury box; and let me say right 
here that when I came on the bench, the juries in my court 
were composed largely of professional jurors, and more 
largely of colored men, a large number of whom were pur- 
chaseable. The first thing I did was to appoint high-minded 
jury commissioners. And I will declare that there is no 
district in the United States that can show a higher class of 
juries than those who serve in the Southern District of 
Georgia. My jury commissioners have been such eminent 
men as John Screven, J. H. Estill, Julian Schley, Albert 
Wylly, George S. Haines, and other names all over the other 
divisions of my district. Take that particular jury, I doubt 
if there ever was a finer jury assembled in any court in 
Georgia. I did sum up in that case, as is my duty under 
the law. I thought the defendant guilty. I still think so. 
Laidler Branen, as I remember, was acquitted. He went 
straight home and found that a young negro there had in¬ 
duced a woman whom he held in peonage to run away while 
he was in Macon. He went to a gathering of innocent 
negroes in the neighborhood, where the young negro was, 
arrested him, stating: “I will show you how to fool with 
my hands,” and took him over into Dooly County into a 
graveyard, strapped him down to a log and beat him to 
death, and then he took his dead body back into Houston 
County and threw it out into the big road, and the very 
men who had contributed to Mr. Felder's fee, farmers and 
neighbors who were interested in the question of peonage, 
labor contracts and the like, made up a fund, as I am in¬ 
formed, as a reward for the arrest of this man Branen. He 


28 


was arrested and brought back and indicted in Houston 
County, and so conservative a man as Judge Wm. H. Felton 
refused to admit him to bail. 

Mr. Callaway: Now come to the case of Crawley and 
McClelland, in which it is said that you coerced a plea, that 
is, that you, in the presence of the jury, summed up in a 
strong manner against the defendant and thus coerced the 
withdrawal of the plea of not guilty and forced them to 
plead guilty. 

Judge Speer: Well, my remarks in overruling the motion 
and directing a verdict are in the record, and as Webster 
said of Massachusetts: “There she stands.” The Com¬ 
mittee can determine for themselves. It has never been the 
practice in this court to require juries to withdraw, and I 
never have done so, that I recall, in a single case. Some 
courts order the juries to withdraw on such occasions, and 
others do not. The Supreme Court of 'our State 
has held that it is entirely discretionary. I did not attempt 
to coerce the plea of guilty, but my whole object in that 
case, where the maximum penalty was five years in the pen¬ 
itentiary, was to do an act of benevolence and kindness to 
these two young Georgians. I saw that they were not in- 
ately bad men. It is true that they had absolutely violated 
the law against peonage, and their pleas concluded them on 
that point. I only wanted them to assume an attitude 
where I could be merciful and I imposed the smallest fine 
permitted by the law, and I had the impression that I gave 
them until fall to pay the moiety of this fine. About that 
however, I may be mistaken. That kindly purpose on the 
part of the judge has been distorted by my malignant and 
malevolent enemies here into an act of arbitrary despotism. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge, what is the attitude of the people 
here with reference to peonage and the enforcement of the 
law against peonage? 

Judge Speer: Well it differs. 

Mr. Callaway: I mean generally through the rural dis¬ 
trict. 

Judge Speer: It is very difficult to secure a conviction 
for peonage. My brother, Judge Newman, of the Northern 


29 


District, has held the act unconstitutional, and I do not re¬ 
call any conviction for peonage in his district. There have 
been some convictions in mine. In saying that, however, I 
do not mean any reflection on our people. In the main, no 
court in the United States has received stronger support 
from the jury body than this court. 

Mr. Callaway: I want to ask you now about the Huff case; 
something has been said about your having the money 
deposited in a family bank and leaving it there without 
interest. 

Judge Speer: The Commercial National Bank of Macon 
was the only general depositary there. We needed a registry 
of the court, and six months* before the Huff property was 
sold and the money evolved as a consequence, by order I 
made that the registry of the court. It being the registry 
of the court, the law declared that all moneys collected on 
mesne and final process shall be deposited in the registry of 
the court, and it was deposited there. There was never any 
application to me to put it out on interest. It could only 
have been done by offering security, under the Statute. No 
such offer was made, but even had it been made, under the 
language of the Statute, it would have been subject to the 
direction of the court, which meant the discretion of the 
court, and it has never been the discretion of this court to 
distribute money which the law imperatively requires me to 
put into the registry, around among bankers who are not 
the registry of the court. I may say that that was the rea¬ 
son for my action in the case which my friend, Mr. Gar¬ 
rard, referred to. He came, in the Max Alexander case, 
and proposed that I should divide the $46,000 on deposit 
between two other bankers here; the president of one of 
those banks being one of my most intimate friends. I should 
have been very glad to have obliged Col. Garrard, and to 
have obliged those banks, but I felt it was safest to comply 
with the law, and to keep the money where the law said it 
ought to be kept. There are a great many other reasons, 
which I need not particularize, why public money should not 
be distributed around among the banks that way. 


It was over eight months. 



30 


Mr. Callaway: Now, two lawyers from Tifton testified 
in Macon in reference to your conduct at Albany in arbitra¬ 
rily ordering them arrested, one was named Rigsdell, is my 
recollection, and the other was Mr. Ellis. 

Judge Speer: Yes, I remember the enmity of Ellis, and 
the ranchor of Rigsdell. 

Mr. Callaway: Just state the facts, please. 

Judge Speer: Why, the facts were that there were 
$16,000 of claims in a bankruptcy case which were contested. 
As I understand, these lawyers contested the validity of 
these claims. The referee sustained the validity of the 
claims. Then they wanted the funds in court distributed. 
The referee, being a practicing lawyer, was engaged in the 
Superior Court and three of these gentlemen sat down and 
made out the dividend sheet for him and they coolly over¬ 
ruled the ruling of the referee and excluded all of those 
claims and appropriated the funds to the claims which they 
themselves controlled,—they with the others who were act¬ 
ing with them. The referee found out the mistake and asked 
restitution pro rata. They refused to make it. Then the 
referee issued a rule. They would not obey it. He then re¬ 
ported the fact to the court, and I issued a rule,—not an 
attachment or order for their arrest, or anything of that 
sort. They would not come to the court. Rigsdell came 
there, but I didn’t know Rigsdell. I understand he adver¬ 
tises himself as a clearing house attorney down there at 
Tifton, by which it may be that he clears cow claims 
against the railroad companies and the like.* But I did not 
know him at all, I did not recognize him. He told me that 
he was in court, and I, of course, omitted him fttom Hie 
order. I told the marshal to bring the other lawyers before 
the court. There was no attachment issued; no order of 
arrest; no discourtesy intended, and when I heard the case, 
I held the trustee and referee liable and discharged the rule 
against the lawyers. Now, in issuing a rule nisi the judge 
is merely opening the doors of the court. What right had 


* Judge Speer wishes to withdraw this supposition and to state that 
he is not informed as to Mr. Rigsdell’s “clearing house” business. 



31 


I to slam the doors of the court in the face of that trustee? 

Mr. Callaway: Now, Judge, there was complaint made 
by Mr. J. T. Hill, of Cordele, about a rule against him with 
reference to $75; what about that? 

Judge Speer: Mr. Hill’s anger is quite unjustifiable. I 
am a little afraid that in that broad brain buzzes the judi¬ 
cial bee, anyway, and if there is a vacancy in this judge- 
ship, Mr. Hill may seek it. But, aside from that, his client 
was a poor prisoner; a yeggman and soon to be a convict. 
He made a sworn affidavit to me that he had given Hill a 
check for $75, $35 of which was to be for his own use; that 
he had the money in a Louisville bank, and that he gave 
Hill a check on that bank. The rule recited that Hill col¬ 
lected the money and rendered no service. It was brought 
to the attention of the court, either in the petition or in the 
evidence, that $35 of that money was for the personal use of 
the prisoner. Now, I thought I had jurisdiction to require 
from Mr. Hill, on those averments, if they were true, at least 
restitution of the $35, which the attorney had been em¬ 
powered to take from the bank for the benefit of his client, 
who was in jail. I hope I so held. I held that Hill should 
pay back one-half of the amount—$37.50; but I was not sat¬ 
isfied with my ruling, and I did not sign the order. Mr. Hill 
and Mr. John R. L. Smith, who is an intense gentleman, and 
whose cranial development, as the Committee will recall, 
is precisely that of Mr. Alexander Akerman,—put out to 
Atlanta that afternoon and appealed from a decision which 
had not been made. I had signed no decree or order. Well, 
on Monday morning, when they came back, I offered them a 
re-hearing; they were silent, and in that way refused to 
accept it. Well, I let the matter rest awhile, and asked Mr. 
McNeill what he was going to do with his rule. He had 
brought the rule. McNeill said he wanted to talk to me 
about it. Then I saw he had no heart in it, and I dismissed 
the rule. After that time I had to write to Mr. Hill upon 
some bankruptcy matters, and I wrote him a letter express¬ 
ing my regret at the injustice I had unintentionally done 
him. That letter, I believe, is in the record. I made the 


32 


amende honorable, but I received neither reply nor answer 
of any sort from him. I had made a mistake, perhaps. I 
did the best I could to correct it. I do not pretend to in¬ 
fallibility. 

Mr. Callaway: Judge, one of the cases investigated at 
Macon, that one of the charges grew out of, has been known 
as the Jamison case, in which it was charged that you defied 
the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States; 
that case, as I understand it, was a habeas corpus case; will 
you briefly state what was in that case and what the facts 
were? 

Judge Speer: Well, Jamison was a poor old darkey who 
worked around my neighborhood. He was not in my em¬ 
ploy; never was. He did odd jobs, cleaning window sash, 
polishing furniture, and things of that sort, and he worked 
sometimes at our house, and was paid by my wife. She 
was a Washington girl—indeed, the building in which your 
deliberations on the fate of her husband will be conducted, 
stands on ground that was bought from her grandfather; 
her people were always slave-holders; their slaves had been 
emancipated during the war, for a small compensation, and 
she always had a kindly feeling for the better class of col¬ 
ored people. Jamison, when sober, belonged to that class. 
Like Drinkwater Tom, he was not always sober. On this 
occasion, it seems he was drunk, and the most merciless 
police magistrate I have ever known, the Hon. Custus Not¬ 
tingham, sentenced him to seven months for that, to that 
hell upon earth, the Bibb County chaingang. If he had been 
a gentleman, or a gentleman’s son, he would have been car¬ 
ried home by an obsequious policeman. 

Mr. Callaway: The question there was that you, when 
this decision of the Supreme Court, the mandate from the 
Supreme Court came back— 

Judge Speer: Let me first pay my respects to Mr. Aker- 
man. He says that I sought to employ him for Jamison, 
and told him that my wife would pay him a fee. Mr. Aker- 
man and I had discussed that feature of Macon’s charter 
often. I have discussed it in my law lectures to the law class 


33 


of Mercer University, where I have been Dean of the Fac¬ 
ulty for twenty-three years. I knew that it was unconsti¬ 
tutional. He knew it also. It was only municipal misbe¬ 
havior; it was not even a misdemeanor, and to put a man 
on the chaingang which, under the law as it then stood, was 
the Georgia penitentiary, was infamous punishment for mu¬ 
nicipal misbehavior. The same might have been done with 
any child for walking on the grass, or with any Southern 
gentleman for spitting on the sidewalk; all municipal misbe¬ 
havior. I did say to Mr. Akerman that my wife would pay 
him his fee, and suggested to him to bring the suit in the 
State Court. Of course, I did that because of her interest. 
He declined to accept any fee from Mrs. Speer. I had no 
other interest in the case at all. There was no reason why 
I should not have tried Jamison, and I issued the writ of 
habeas corpus. On the hearing I have given my reasons, in 
the opinion published in the Federal Reporter. The Su¬ 
preme Court reversed me, not because I didn’t have juris¬ 
diction, but because of that comity that should exist be¬ 
tween the courts of the State and the courts of the United 
States, they were of the opinion that Jamison should have 
sought relief by the State Court route, then appeal to the 
Supreme Court of the State, and then, in case of an ad¬ 
verse decision, to the Supreme Court of the United States. 
Well, we were turned out of the public building there by the 
order of the Secretary of the Treasury. On the 16th of 
October I adjourned the District Court until the court in 
course. The order in evidence shows that. No District 
Court was in session. This petition was addressed to the 
District Court. Now, there are two kinds of habeas corpus; 
one may be addressed to the judge, and the other to the 
court. This was addressed to the court, but the court was 
in vacation. I was, however, sitting in the ladies’ parlor of 
the Hotel Lanier, where probably Jamison, as a prisoner, 
might not have been welcomed,—passing on the question of 
whether or not the Idle-Hour Stock Farm, a bankrupt asset 
of the Plant estate, should be sold. Mr. Wimberly came in, 
but if he had any application, he didn’t read it to the court. 


34 


It seems he did have one in writing, but he presented the 
mandate and told me he wanted it made the judgment of 
the court. I knew his purpose. I knew, too, that Jamison 
was seeking to enforce his constitutional right in the way 
the Supreme Court had instructed him to do, through the 
State Court route. I did not want to do anything that would 
send that poor man back to what I knew was an illegal, 
unconstitutional and cruel punishment, and becauise my 
court was not in session, I was justified in saying to Mr.' 
Wimberly: “You may file your mandate with the Clerk. 
I will not take it up at this time.” According to his own 
testimony, within fifteen minutes he ordered the re-arrest 
of Jamison. Now, my original order was still of full force 
and effect, and his conduct in ordering a re-arrest was ir¬ 
regular, contrary to due procedure, and disrespectful to the 
court. True, I had been reversed, but the mandate of the 
Supreme Court had not been made the judgment of my 
court. That night the poor negro was re-arrested and car¬ 
ried and put in the chaingang, and three days later another 
petition for habeas corpus was presented by Mr. Akerman, 
alleging. that the recourse of Jamison, through the State 
Court route, had failed, and seeking the writ. I granted the 
writ and the marshal found Jamison, with others, chained 
down in the Bibb County chaingang. In the meantime ap¬ 
plication was made to the State Court. Judge Felton re¬ 
fused it and Jamison could not give bond. Therefore, the 
sentence would have been served by him and the unconsti¬ 
tutional punishment imposed if I had not taken the action I 
did take. It not only protected him, but it protected several 
others who made applications upon the same ground about 
the same time. After a time the City Attorney came in, 
and with counsel for these relators in the various habeas 
corpus cases, agreed that they should await the determina¬ 
tion of the Supreme Court of the State. The Supreme Court 
of the State sustained my contention on the merits, and 
annulled that feature of the charter of the City of Macon, 
and no longer can a man be sent to the Georgia penitentiary 
for municipal misbehavior. That was the result of it. 


35 


Mr. Callaway: You issued some rule against Mr. Wim¬ 
berly—Mr. Wimbish and somebody else there? 

Judge Speer: I did that on a sworn application pre¬ 
pared, and I think sworn to, by Mr. Akerman. I had no 
right to shut the door of my court in the face of that poor 
man who alleged that these people had maltreated him in 
violation of the order of the court. 

Mr. Callaway: Was an order ever issued on that? 

Judge Speer: There was a hearing, a full hearing, and I 
reserved my decision. In the meantime, I knew the whole 
matter was pending before the Supreme Court and it all 
rocked along until the Supreme Court settled the whole 
question. 

Mr. Callaway: Was anything else ever done—did any¬ 
body take any further interest in it after the decision in 
the Pearson case, in January? 

Judge Speer: I think not; certainly no affront was in¬ 
tended to anybody. There was no arrest, no attachment 
issued. It was merely a rule nisi, which, I say, is to open 
the doors of the court. I have always had a listening ear 
to the very humblest, just as I did to the poor yeggmatn,; 
Gibson, in the Tom Hill case, and I shall continue to do it, 
if I remain judge. 

Mr. Callaway: If a Federal Judge, a District Judge, 
disobeys the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United 
States or the Circuit Court of Appeals, is there any way of 
enforcing him to do it? 

Judge Speer: Why, those two great courts have every 
means of enforcing their mandates. I do not think this 
Honorable Committee need trouble about their authority, or 
the dignity and respect due them. 

Mr. Callaway: Now, it appears from the record that the 
mandate in the Jamison case was not actually made the 
judgment of this court until the 8th of June, is my recol¬ 
lection. What had occurred in the meanwhile, between that 
time and the 8th of June, where were you in 1906? 

Judge Speer: I was here trying the Green and Gaynor 
case for three months and ten days. There was no use to 


36 


make it the judgment of the court, because this constitu¬ 
tional question was pending before the Supreme Court of 
the State, and if I had made it the judgment of the court, 
Jamison would have been at once carried to the chaingang 
and made to suffer infamous punishment, punishment 
which the-State Supreme Court held to be unlawful. 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Gazan, on yesterday, stated that he 
had been trying to get a record written off by Mr. Cameron, 
your stenographer and clerk, since last summer, and that 
he wrote you about it; do you recall the instance? 

Judge Speer: I think I do, and when I got his letter, I 
think I told Mr. Cameron—I was not in the court room 
when Mr. Cameron testified—but I think I told Mr. Cam¬ 
eron to furnish him the record as soon as he could. We 
were all in a good deal of trouble last year. This gentleman, 
whose activities you have observed here in this investigation 
—I do not refer to any member of the Committee—ap¬ 
peared upon the scene in Macon and began to investigate the 
Judge, and that disorganized our whole system up there. 

Mr. Callaway: Well, don’t let us discuss that, Judge. 

Judge Speer: Well, it was a very practical interference 
with the operations of the court, for a detective from the 
Department of Justice to come in and say he was examining 
the Judge, and taking statements from all the officers of the 
court. 

Mr. Callaway: Well, let us not discuss that. 

Judge Speer: Well, all right, I won’t. I have discussed 
it, though, elsewhere, and it met with the unanimous ap¬ 
proval of the Iowa Bar Association. 

Mr. Callaway: Something has been said here about your 
midnight appointment of a receiver in the Central Railroad 
case, the Rowena Clark case. 

Judge Speer: Well, if I had appointed any receiver at 
midnight, he could not have gotten here when he did, be¬ 
cause the train left Macon at 11 o’clock at that time, is my 
recollection. The truth is, that petition was presented to me 
early in the morning; I considered it all day before I ap¬ 
pointed a receiver, and I saved by that order $50,000,000 of 


37 


property from the hands of Pat Calhoun and his associates, 
by whom it was simply being wrecked, and had it not been 
that a receiver was appointed, in a few short months it 
would have been swept into the maelstrom of the Richmond 
& Danville failure, and the whole thing would have been 
administered by the Virginia courts—with what result to 
the people of Georgia, we can well imagine. The Georgia 
Pacific Railway Company was holding those vast proper¬ 
ties without the scratch of a pen, and in that case my ruling 
has been cited with approval by the Supreme Court of the 
United States and two other cases decided by me on the same 
question. This was in the Kentucky case, and in the case 
involving the consolidation of the Harriman roads. True, 
Justice Jackson differed with me, but in the Northern Se¬ 
curities case, and in a later case, the same principles which 
I then announced have been recognized as the law of the 
land, and are now a permanent feature in our jurisprudence. 

Mr. Callaway: Mr. Chairman, at this stage, I wish to 
make this statement. As far as I have been able to do so, 
I have confined these questions to matters personal, instead 
of going into the record. The Committee may well under¬ 
stand that, there having been volumes of this evidence, 
necessarily, relating to the records in the court. I do not 
want to worry the Committee, nor do I think it proper to 
ask about things where the record would be the most ac¬ 
curate evidence, or to take the time of the Committee. We 
ask permission, for Judge Speer, to file a general synopsis 
answering all these matters, and particularly where they 
have not been covered by Judge Speer in this investigation, 
and I will say for Judge Speer that he is anxious for ‘the 
Committee to ask him any questions about any matters that 
have been developed, or been inquired about, to the Com¬ 
mittee's satisfaction, and he will be delighted to answer 
them. 

Judge Speer: There are some things that have been 
stated here about me that I would like to reply to. Will you 
kindly hand me that book there. Mr. Osborne has said that 
I am devoid of personal courage. 


38 


Mr. Callaway: Well, Judge, I do not think that it is a 
matter for this investigation. 

Judge Speer: I just wanted to show my record as a mem¬ 
ber of the Kentucky Brigade, that is all, but counsel won’t 
let me do it. Col. Garrard knows about that Kentucky 
Brigade; they were with him at Vicksburg, I believe. 

The Chairman: Judge Speer, in the Branen case, in 
Pulaski County, where they were indicted for peonage, 
did you attempt to coerce a verdict of guilty from the jury? 

Judge Speer: Not at all, sir. 

The Chairman: Did the jury in that case present you 
with flowers? 

Judge Speer: I think they did. They often do. My 
relations with the juries in my district are exceedingly cor¬ 
dial, but those flowers did not influence me or my opinion. 

The Chairman: It has been charged here generally that 
you took sides in cases and that you showed very clearly to 
the jury that you were taking sides,—that it was apparent 
to the jury; is that true? 

Judge Speer: I think, Mr. Chairman, that that state¬ 
ment is due to the difference between the State Court prac¬ 
tice and the United States Court practice. In the State 
Courts the judges, by Statute, are not permitted to intimate 
what has been or has not been proven, not in the slightest 
degree. If I had a pistol, for instance (which I have not), 
and I should draw it now and shoot Mr. Lucas there, and if 
a thousand people saw it, and if the Judge said that that 
homicide was committed in the court house in Chatham 
county, that would be regarded as an error by our State 
Courts. It was regarded as error in a famous case where 
the people immediately lynched the accused who had been 
thus acquitted. In the United States Court the judge can, 
if he thinks proper, express an opinion. I rarely express an 
opinion, but where I am convinced that right is on one side, 
I probably present the evidence in such a manner as to show 
my conception of what is right. That is the English prac¬ 
tice, and it is the practice existing in the United States 
Court. I do not do that unfairly, though, but invariably 


39 


leave the whole question to the jury. A great deal has been 
said here about emphasis, tone, etc. I am not aware that 
the ordinary rules of elocution are excluded from judicial 
utterances. Your Honors will remember that some admirer 
said of Mansfield, “Oh, what an Ovid was in Murray lost.” 

The Chairman: It is true, then, or not that you do or 
not make up your mind as to a man’s guilt, or as to the- 
issues in the case, and endeavor to convey your opinion to 
the jury in making your charges? 

Judge Speer: I never make up my mind that a man is 
guilty until I see, from all of the evidence,—that offered on 
behalf of the prosecution and that on behalf of the defense— 
that he is guilty. When I see that he is guilty, in my judg¬ 
ment, I sum up the evidence fairly. I can commend your 
attention to my charge to the jury in the Green and Gaynor 
case. I received a letter from none other than Lord 
Loriburn, a member of the Privy Council of the British 
Empire, who passed on that whole case, and who congratu¬ 
lated me on the thoroughness and impartiality of that 
charge. He was afterwards Lord Chancellor. I oppose his 
opinion to that of Mr. Robert Colding. 

The Chairman: On that point, Judge Speer, Mr. Aker- 
man contends that in the Scarboro case the trial had pro¬ 
gressed but a few hours when you sent for him and told him 
that you had seen enough of the case to convince you that 
Scarboro was a very guilty man, but that you thought he 
was overmatched by counsel and suggested that the govern¬ 
ment employ additional counsel, but that when you came to 
charge the jury, you delivered a very partial charge in favor 
of Scarboro, which resulted in a mistrial. Is that state¬ 
ment of Mr. Akerman correct? 

Judge Speer: All that I said to Mr. Akerman was that, 
Vrima facie the government’s case seemed to be made out. I 
had perceived, however, that Mr. Akerman was over¬ 
matched. Reuben Arnold, who was a famous advocate, had 
been brought down there from Atlanta, and there were other 
accomplished advocates against him, and in the interest of 
an impartial trial and the ascertainment of justice, I sug- 


40 


gested that he should write to attorney general and ask for 
help. He did so, and got help. When the evidence was con¬ 
cluded, I then delivered my charge. I don’t know whether 
it is in the record or not. 

Mr. Callaway: Yes, it is in the record. 

Judge Speer: Well, I beg to call your attention to it. I 
do not think a fairer charge was ever delivered to a jury. 

The Chairman: Did you think that Scarboro was guilty 
or not guilty when you delivered your charge? 

Judge Speer: I do not remember now, sir. You might 
determine that from the nature of the charge. 

The Chairman: Do you think we could determine that 
from the nature of the charge—whether you thought he 
was guilty or not guilty? 

Judge Speer: I think so. 

The Chairman: Do you know how the jury stood in 
that case? 

Judge Speer: I did not. 

The Chairman: Did Mr. White inform you at the hotel 
that it stood eight to four in favor of conviction? 

Judge Speer: He did not. 

The Chairman: Did you tell him to keep the jury walk¬ 
ing until you could declare a mistrial? 

Judge Speer: My only instruction to him about the 
locomotion of the jury was to give them a walk before their 
supper. 

The Chairman: And you did not tell him not to let them 
deliberate any more? 

Judge Speer: That is utterly untrue. In point of fact, 
they did deliberate after supper, and were deliberating, pre¬ 
sumably deliberating while I was engaged in this somewhat 
extensive conference in my chambers with the counsel for 
the prisoner and the counsel for the prosecution. 

The Chairman: There has been some evidence here that 
this man King, your former clerk, was a poor man, a man 
of not much means; do you know how that is ? 

Judge Speer: I always thought Mr. King was a well-to- 
do man. I know that he made a good income as clerk. I did 


41 


not know that he had anybody dependent upon him. Mr. 
Simmons testified that I settled with his widow. In point of 
fact he was a bachelor. If he had a widow, she was a 
secluded sort of widow, and I never knew anything about 
her. He had an orange grove or plantation in Florida, and 
he lived like a gentleman. He was a literary man. I thought 
he was a well-to-do man. 

The Chairman: The costs deposited in the various cases 
did not go to the registry, did they? 

Judge Speer: No. 

The Chairman: They were left in the hands of the 
Clerk? 

Judge Speer: Yes, sir. 

The Chairman: Did you know about the time that Mr. 
Simmons deposited something like $2,000 or $2,500 costs 
in various cases that he testified about? 

Judge Speer: I knew nothing about the deposits of costs 
in any case in my life. I had nothing to do with it and never 
knew anything about it. 

The Chairman: Why did you telegraph to Mr. Charlton 
instead of writing? 

Judge Speer: Because I wanted to settle promptly with 
the officer of my court who demanded his money. I did not 
want a moment’s delay. 

The Chairman: But the note had been running for four 
or five years. 

Judge Speer: But I did not know that he wanted his 
money. It was the first time he had ever asked for it. 

The Chairman: Had he written you a letter, imme¬ 
diately prior to your telegraphing Mr. Charlton, demand¬ 
ing payment of the note and suggesting that it had been 
taken from costs? 

Judge Speer: He wrote me a letter asking for his money, 
but he never suggested that it had been taken from costs. 

The Chairman: In the case of J. T. Hill, can you tell us 
why you held this judgment open from Spring until Sep¬ 
tember 1st? 

Judge Speer: Well, I had offered a rehearing and I did 
not know whether counsel would move to take it up or not. 


42 


The Chairman: Did you know that during that sum¬ 
mer, Mr. Hill was expecting to be a candidate for Congress 
in his district? 

Judge Speer: I was not aware of that fact. This is my 
first acquaintance with that piece of political information. 
Mr. Hill lived some little distance from me. 

The Chairman: Did you undertake to coerce a verdict, 
or rather, to coerce a plea of guilty in the case of the United 
States against Crawley and McClelland? 

Judge Speer: I did not, sir, and I commend to your con¬ 
sideration the testimony of Mr. Toomer, their leading coun¬ 
sel, on that subject. 

The Chairman: Would you have given these men a 
severer punishment if they had gone to the jury and 
been convicted than you did give them upon the submission 
of a plea? 

Judge Speer: I probably should have done so. 

The Chairman: Did you not make that impression upon 
them or their counsel? 

Judge Speer: I did not intend so to do. They have 
spoken about the flash of my eye and the steely glitter of 
my eye. I am not conscious when my eye flashes, nor can I 
discover its steely glitter. I knew nothing of that sort. I 
was really trying to help those young men. 

The Chairman: How, Judge? 

Judge Speer: By suggesting that they assume an atti¬ 
tude, which seemed inevitable fyom the facts in the case, by 
which I could show them the mercy which I did show them. 

The Chairman: Would their effort to secure a verdict 
from the jury have been construed by you as an affront, and 
would you have punished them more if they had been con¬ 
victed by the jury? 

Judge Speer: In no sense an affront, but it is always the 
practice of courts, as I understand it, when a man pleads 
guilty, to be more lenient with him than when he fights it 
out to the end. 

The Chairman: Is that your practice? 

Judge Speer: If he is clearly guilty. Yes, that is my 
practice. 


43 


The Chairman: Then you must have made the impres¬ 
sion on McClelland and Crawley and their counsel that you 
would give them a more severe punishment if they con¬ 
tended for their rights before the jury and were convicted, 
than if they entered a plea of guilty. 

Judge Speer: If they got that impression, it was from 
my established practice, not from anything I said or did. 
They were familiar—at least, Mr. Toomer was familiar with 
the practice of the court. Why, your Honors, there are hun¬ 
dreds of poor men all over the State, thousands I might say, 
who have plead guilty in my court to violations of the in¬ 
ternal revenue law; they plead guilty in the Spring, when 
the crops are in process of development, or in the fall when 
they should be in the cotton field gathering the fleecy staple, 
but I do not impose sentence upon them then. I let them 
go on a nominal bond, go to their homes and make their 
crops, or gather them, and come back in December, and 
then impose some fine, and then about Christmas I will send 
for their wives and we will have a sort of love feast over the 
matter and I will make a Christmas gift of that man to his 
wife, and that man becomes a friend of the judge and of the 
court, and a propagandist of law. There are thousands of 
people in Georgia who will testify to these facts, that my 
administration has been merciful. Mr. Toomer testified that 
I was the most humane judge he had ever known, and my 
humanity has been construed here into evidence of despot¬ 
ism and arbitrary conduct. 

The Chairman: How long was the firm or partnership 
of Talley & Heyward in existence? 

Judge Speer: I think about eight years, but I am not 
quite sure. 

The Chairman: It was formed about 1906, after the 
Green any Gaynor case, or just before, was it not? 

Judge Speer: Yes. I am not quite sure about that. 

The Chairman: Did you know the terms of the contract 
or agreement between Talley and Heyward as to the division 
of the fees? 

Judge Speer: No, sir. I knew nothing in the world 
abotit it. 


44 


The Chairman: You did not know that Mr. Talley and 
Mr. Heyward divided their fees equally? 

Judge Speer: I did not, and I have a letter from Mr, 
Talley in my possession, if the stenographer can get it and 
hand it to me, I will read it to your Honors,—reciting those 
facts. 

The Chairman: Well, I think we have a copy of the same 
letter. 

Judge Speer: No, I do not think it is in evidence. 

The Chairman: You never, during these six years that 
your son-in-law lived near you, and you saw him daily, ( 
you never knew what proportion of the revenue he was 
getting from the partnership of Talley & Heyward? 

Judge Speer: No, I did not. 

The Chairman: And you had no idea what it was? 

Judge Speer: I may have had an idea, but I didn’t know 
definitely what it was. 

The Chairman: Generally, what was your idea about 
what it was? 

Judge Speer: Well, my general idea was, so far as I 
knew, that he got half of the income of the firm, but 
whether that extended to the masterships or special master¬ 
ships, or anything of that sort, I did not know. 

The Chairman: But you do know now that it did, I 
presume, Judge? 

Judge Speer: I think I have been informed so since this 
investigation began. 

The Chairman: Mr. Talley has kindly furnished the 
Committee a list of cases in which the firm of Talley & Hey¬ 
ward were employed, from 1906 to December, 1912, in which 
they received fees to the amount of $10,650. 

Judge Speer: How much is that a year, sir? 

The Chairman: Well, you can calculate that for your¬ 
self. 

J udge Speer: I am a very poor hand at arithmetic, and 
I am sure your Honor is very good in figures. 

The Chairman: Well, I could state it, but it is not neces¬ 
sary for this investigation, Judge Speer. 


45 


Judge Speer: Well, I beg your pardon, if I asked any¬ 
thing that was improper. 

The Chairman: What I wanted to ask was, were you 
generally familiar with the fact that these fees of the firm 
of Talley & Heyward were being paid in this sum, or some 
similar sum? 

Judge Speer: I knew that they were both popular young 
men and were trying to make a living. I knew that they 
had scores of friends. Mr. Talley had been my stenographer 
for fourteen years, and had a most general acquaintance 
throughout the Southern District. He was an honor gradu¬ 
ate of the University of Georgia. I knew that they had a 
large correspondence, and a large business, but I was not 
informed as to their fees. In fact, I think the young gentle¬ 
men kept it away from me, for some reason. 

The Chairman: Mr. Talley has furnished a list of cases 
here and fees received from his being Trustee or Receiver 
in bankruptcy cases from July 1st, 1906 to December 31, 
1912, in which he says that the total compensation he has 
received was $1,693; the total compensation as trustee, 
$3,022. Did you have some general idea that he was re¬ 
ceiving that much compensation in the bankruptcy court in 
your district during that time? 

Judge Speer: No, I didn’t know how much he was re¬ 
ceiving. As trustee, you will observe that he was elected 
by the creditors. But he got only $1,600 as receiver during 
all the years as partnership, it seems from that statement. 

The Chairman: Who appointed the special masters in 
your court? 

Judge Speer: I did, sir. 

The Chairman: He states that from July 1st, 1906, to 
Dec. 31st, 1912, he received, as special master, for fixing 
other persons’ fees, $490. 

Judge Speer: I did not know how much he received. I 
will remark this, however, for the information of the Com¬ 
mittee, that Mr. Talley is the standing master appointed by 
the Circuit Judges and myself. That appointment was made 
before Mr. Heyward married my daughter, before I knew 


46 


Mr. Heyward. Mr. Talley having received the approval 
of the Circuit Judges, and I being otherwise aware that he 
was one of the best masters I ever knew, I gave him this 
appointment, as I gave a great many others to other mem¬ 
bers of the Bar. 

The Chairman: He says that from July 1st, 1907, to 
June 30th, 1908, as special master, he received $605.15; 
from July 1st, 1908, to June 30th, 1909, $455 as special 
master. 

Judge Speer: I was not aware of what he received, sir. 

The Chairman: Was he your secretary for quite a while 
before he became your son-in-law's partner? 

Judge Speer: I think Mr. Talley began with me in 1902, 
I mean 1892, and he became a partner with Mr. Heyward in 
1906. He was with me 14 or 15 years, and we never had 
the slightest difference. I never knew a more honorable, 
upright gentleman in my life. 

The Chairman: Do you know why the firm of Talley & 
Heyward was dissolved? 

Judge Speer: They both told me that it was because the 
court put so many restrictions upon them because of my 
relationship to Mr. Heyward, that they could not make a 
living. That is what they told me. I don’t know whether 
that is true or not, but I presume it is, from my knowledge 
of their character. I was very careful, to give them no ad¬ 
vantage over other members of the Bar, and your Honors 
will find, by looking to the orders of the court, that many 
other young gentlemen received discretionary appointments 
from me. I try to help all the worthy I can. I have always 
loved young men, and I always try to help them. 

The Chairman: After the partnership of Talley & Hey¬ 
ward was dissolved, did you make an effort to secure an¬ 
other partnership for your son-in-law with another gen¬ 
tleman ? 

Judge Speer: I do not recall that I did, sir. 

The Chairman: I will ask you if you did not propose a 
partnership for Mr. Heyward with Mr. Samuel Adams, of 
Albany, Ga.? 


47 


Judge Speer: I do not know any such gentleman as that. 
I don’t think there is any Samuel Adams in Albany, Ga. 

The Chairman: Samuel Benett is the man I had in mind 
—Samuel Benett, of Albany, Ga. 

Judge Speer: I think I once advised Mr. Benett to move 
to Macon. I do not recall fully the circumctances of the 
conversation. He is a very able lawyer, and I thought the 
opportunities would be enlarged for him in Macon. 

The Chairman: Did you advise a partnership with Mr. 
A. H. Heyward? 

Judge Speer: I do not remember distinctly. I may have 
done so; not in any improper or coercive way, though. 

The Chairman: Now, that was after the partnership of 
Talley & Heyward was dissolved. 

Judge Speer: If I suggested it, it was. I do not re¬ 
member the incident. 

The Chairman: And it was before the partnership of 
Isaac & Heyward was actually formed? 

Judge Speer: Yes, it must have been if I made such a 
suggestion, but I say I do not remember it. 

The Chairman: Did you make a suggestion to any other 
member of the Bar in the Southern District, Judge Speer? 
. Judge Speer: I do not recall, sir. 

The Chairman: Who first made the suggestion as to the 
formation of the partnership of Isaac & Heyward, do you 
remember, or do you know? 

Judge Speer: I do not think any first suggestion was 
made to me. I think they made the partnership themselves. 
They were quite intimate friends. I know that Mr. Isaac 
had spent a large part of two summers with Mr. Heyward 
at Highlands, N. C., where Mr. Heyward had gone for his 
summer vacation, and when Mr. Heyward went to Bruns¬ 
wick, he would usually stop with Mr. Isaac. I remember 
his laudatory remarks about Mr. Isaac’s cook and her pro¬ 
ficiency in cooking shell-fish and the like. They were quite 
intimate. They formed their own partnership. 

The Chairman: Did you know that they were going to 
form a partnership, during the Spring term of court in 
Savannah, Ga., in 1913? 


48 


Judge Speer: I cannot say that I knew it definitely. 

The Chairman: Had it been discussed with you ? 

Judge Speer: I do not recall. 

The Chairman: When Mr. Isaac resigned as referee in 
bankruptcy in your court, in open court, did you know at 
that time he was going to form a partnership with M'r** 
Heyward ? 

Judge Speer: I certainly did not. I understood from 
Mr. White that Mr. Isaac told him that he wanted to go into 
the general bankruptcy practice so as to utilize his long ex¬ 
perience as referee, and that if he, White, should ever have 
a good case, to let him know about it. That is what Mrl. 
White told me. 

The Chairman: That is Mr. George F. White? 

Judge Speer: George F. White. I think that is the way 
Isaac got into the Jenkins County case—the Daniel case. 

The Chairman: Did you ever discuss the partnership of 
Isaac & Heyward with Mr. Isaac—talk to him about it? 

Judge Speer: I do not remember, sir. I certainly did 
not promote it in any improper way. 

The Chairman. Did you discuss it at all with him? 

Judge Speer: I cannot remember. It may be possible 
that one or both of the young gentlemen spoke to me about 
it before they formed a partnership, but if so, I do not re¬ 
call it. 

The Chairman: Did you ever see the contract of part¬ 
nership between these two gentlemen? 

Judge Speer: I did not know they had a contract. 

The Chairman: Do you know what their contract or 
agreement is? 

Judge Speer: No, sir; I do not. 

The Chairman: You do not know what division of fees 
it provides for? 

Judge Speer: No, sir, I absolutely do not. 

The Chairman: Is the partnership still in existence? 

Judge Speer: No. It has been dissolved. 

The Chairman: When was that? 

Judge Speer: Some time ago, but when, I do not re¬ 
member. Now, let me say one thing right here to show how 


49 


careful I was about this matter. There was the Yaryan 
Naval Stores Company. Yaryan is a wonderful chemist. 
He is the man who, in times past, unearthed the operations 
of the whiskey ring. He developed a plan by which he could 
make spirits of turpentine out of old stumps and laps of 
trees which are all through these pine forests down here in 
Georgia and in Florida and elsewhere. A gigantic estab¬ 
lishment was put up at Brunswick for the purpose of ulitiz- 
ing that invention. Finally they got into difficulties. A 
friendly suit was brought; receivers were appointed, receiv¬ 
ers of high character. Messrs. Isaac & Heyward came to me 
at St. Simon's Island with a request from those receivers to 
appoint them general counsel of the Yaryan Naval Stores 
Company, and I positively refused to do so. 

The Chairman: That was the last bankruptcy case, I 
believe, they had before you, was it not? 

Judge Speer: That was not a bankruptcy case. That 
was a bill in equity. 

The Chairman: In this proceeding against Col. W. A. 
Huff, was Mr. Orville Park representing and advising you? 

Judge Speer: I think Mr. Park advised me about the 
rule. When I found that Mr. Akerman was in a way^ 
treacherous to me, as I thought, I wanted the assistance of 
another District Attorney to prosecute a matter so essential 
to the respect due to the judicial system of which I have 
been for so long a member, and I requested Mr. Park to go to 
Washington and submit’the facts to the Attorney General. 
He did so, and Mr. Street, District Attorney of Alabama, 
was appointed. I do not know whether Mr. Park appeared 
on the trial of that rule or not. I purposely absented myself 
from the court. 

The Chairman: He did advise with you, Judge? 

Judge Speer: Yes, he advised with me. 

The Chairman: Was that in 1912 or 1913? 

Judge Speer: The affront was given—the long and in¬ 
sulting diatribe which Mr. Huff wrote me, was sent to my 
house about the 31st of July, 1912, and the rule was issued 
the next day. I overruled the demurrer to the rule, and 


50 


then, for reasons stated in the record, I immediately dis¬ 
qualified myself, as I was personally interested, and re¬ 
quested the appointment of another Judge to try it. Judge 
Grubb was appointed and on the trial convicted Mr. Huff, 
and on account of the age of the old man, notwithstanding 
his bitterness and malevolence, I have never moved for 
judgment. He has never been sentenced. 

The Chairman: My object in asking you that question 
was to ask you another one, Judge Speer. We see in the 
records of the bankruptcy court, among others, a case called 
the White Supply Company, in which the firm of Harde¬ 
man, Jones, Park & Johnston were attorneys, and we find 
that a man by the name of A. J. Crovatt, I believe, referee 
in bankruptcy, allowed the firm of Hardeman, Jones, Park 
& Johnston $350. 

Judge Speer: Yes. 

The Chairman: And that Mr. Park seems to have car¬ 
ried the matter to you at Mount Airy and that you raised 
that fee from $350 to $500; can you tell us why that was 
done? 

Judge Speer: Because Mr. Park, after the fee had been 
allowed by Mr. Crovatt, who was the special master, had 
brought in a large sum additional to that, which was before 
in the hands of the trustee; I forget how much. How much 
was that, Mr. Park? 

Mr. Park: My recollection is that it was about $4,000 
additional assets that came in after the fee was fixed. 

Judge Speer: Well, I allowed him an increase of fee for 
the additional service. 

The Chairman: You say you did not sign what has 
been called here the midnight order, at night? 

Judge Speer: No. That was the canard that Henry 
Crawford, counsel for the railroad wreckers, told when he 
came down here. 

The Chairman: Why was it that bill was not sworn to 
as appears in the record when it was not sworn to before 
any particular officer? Was it sworn to before you? 

Judge Speer: I do not remember the verification, Mr 
Webb. 


51 


Mr. Callaway: I think, Mr. Chairman, you will find that 
in the printed copy I have introduced here—if not that, at 
least in the record, because it was sworn to before the 
Clerk of the United States Court; it was sworn to before 
Mr. L. M. Erwin, Deputy Clerk; sworn to absolutely. The 
attestation was not on the copy that Col. Lawton had. 

Judge Speer: I do trust your Honors will examine the 
record in that case. I have never rendered a greater service 
to my people or to the right than in that case. 

The Chairman: Did you ever say that that was a chance 
for a young man to make his name and fame, to bring suit? 

Judge Speer: No, sir, that was a calumny started by a 
bitter enemy of the man who brought the suit. 

The Chairman: Well, is it true, Judge Speer, that prior 
to the passage of what is known as the Hepburn Act, you 
did ride on free passes and that your family rode free, your 
horses, vehicles and other truck? 

Judge Speer: I rode free when everybody else rode free. 

The Chairman: Is it true that you are the only person 
who had the privilege of transporting your horses and 
vehicles free? 

Judge Speer: I am inclined to think not, sir. I cannot 
be sure about it, but I think I have seen the frank marks— 
the free frank marks of the Central Railroad on the furni¬ 
ture, etc., of Messrs. Lawton and Cunningham, who them¬ 
selves occasionally repaired to Mount Airy, where I have 
my summer home. About that, however, I cannot be 
positive. 

The Chairman: Is it true that during the receivership 
of this railroad system, you rode over it on free passes and 
franks ? 

Judge Speer: Yes, sir. 

The Chairman: With your horses and vehicles? 

Judge Speer: Yes, it is true, but there were a great 
many others who did; members of the State Agricultural 
Society, preachers, all of the judges', judges of the Circuit 
Court of Appeals, all the State Court Judges and members 
of the Legislature, they would occasionally have a free train 


52 


to come down to see whether there was water at Brunswick 
or not, or something of that sort. 

The Chairman: Was it customary for Judges to ride on 
free passes and to transport their horses and their household 
furniture on railroads which they had placed in the hands 
of receivers ? 

Judge Speer: I rather think it was. I think some of 
them were not satisfied unless they got a special car. From 
those days, of course there has been a great change of pub¬ 
lic sentiment, but I have never violated the law on the 
subject. 

The Chairman: Can you give the Committee some ap¬ 
proximate idea of how much time, during the last four 
years, you have spent at Mount Airy, Highlands, or other 
places outside of the Southern District of Georgia? 

Judge Speer: Well, I usually go to Mount Airy about 
the first of August, and then when the hay fever comes on, 
which is on the 21st or a little before that time, I repair to 
the more salubrious mountains of your own State, Mr. 
Chairman. I come back about frost to Georgia. The first 
term of my court, which I usually attend, is the Novem-< 
ber term at Savannah. We have an October Term in 
Macon, but for twenty-odd years, because that is in the 
cotton section, I have adjourned the October term, so that 
the jurors, witnesses and others can remain in the cotton 
fields gathering their crops. Now, the first time in many 
years, 20 or 25, I don’t remember, Mr. Akerman secured 
the presence of Judge Grubb there in 1912, on the pretext 
that the dockets were congested. Judge Grubb tried Very 
few cases, and then did exactly what I would have done, he 
postponed sentences until after the crops were gathered; so 
the government got nothing by a precipitate trial. The 
men who were brought to court were taken out of their 
fields at the very season of the year when they ought to 
have been there. 

The Chairman: . You resented the coming of Judge 
Grubb to hold court in your district, did you not? 

Judge Speer: I did not resent the coming of Judge 


53 


Grubb, but I resented the misrepresentation that my 
dockets were congested. They were not congested. 

The Chairman: Did not the Department of Justice so 
report, that they were congested ? 

Judge Speer: Yes. 

The Chairman: Didn’t Attorney-General Wickersham 
write you a letter to that effect? 

Judge Speer: No, sir; he did not, that I remember. I 
do not recall any such letter, and I am satisfied he never 
wrote it; although I may be mistaken. The truth is, Mr. 
Chairman, I have been in a pretty hard case since the be¬ 
ginning of the Green any Gaynor transaction. I had a most 
admirable District Attorney, the Hon. Marion Erwin; no 
one more efficient. The Attorney-General took him away 
from me and kept him out of my district for years in that 
great litigation, in all of its forms, and finally I had to 
protest that the district was suffering because we didn’t have 
a District Attorney, and I practically demanded the ap¬ 
pointment of a District Attorney, and I recommended five 
gentlemen; among them, Mr. Stanley Benett, my friend, 
Judge Callaway, and Mr. Orville Park. Then the Attorney- 
General wrote me and asked me if I could not recommend 
Mr. Akerman. Mr. Akerman was my sixth choice. 

The Chairman: You wrote the Attorney-General you 
had no objection to Mr. Akerman, that he would make a 
good District Attorney? 

Judge Speer: Yes. 

The Chairman: If he had time to devote to his office? 

Judge Speer: I think I wrote that instruction. As I 
tell you, I felt very kindly towards the man who was the 
father of a boy named for me. 

The Chairman: Is this the telegram you sent the Attor¬ 
ney-General: “Replying to your letter—if Mr. Akerman 
can devote time to duties of office, I would with great pleas¬ 
ure add his to the names suggested as eminently fit for 
appointment. Feb. 7th, 1912”? 

Judge Speer: Yes, I think that is true. May I add, in 
that connection, that Mr. Akerman was quite an active 


54 


machine politician of the Republican party in Georgia. He 
was away from the district a great deal of the time at polit¬ 
ical conventions and conferences in Atlanta about the dis¬ 
tribution of patronage and the like, and then at that time 
he was appointed Assistant Attorney-General to prosecute 
The Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta Journal for al¬ 
leged violations of the postal laws, and he was away a{ 
great deal, and it was for that reason that I said if he can 
devote his time to the office, I will gladly add his name or 
words to that effect. Now, I interrupted you, Mr. Chair¬ 
man in some question that you were going to ask me. 

The Chairman: I was just about to say that that was 
the order in which you recommended these gentlemen for 
District Attorney—Mr. Orville Park, who now represents 
you, first, he was your first choice? 

Judge Speer: I don’t know that there was any first 
choice. I think the five were about together. I was indiffer¬ 
ent as to the five. I would have been satisfied with either 
of them. 

The Chairman: Have you a copy of the letter you wrote 
Mr. Wickersham January 30th, 1905? 

Judge Speer: No, sir; if you have it, I would like to 
see it. 

The Chairman: Well, I have a copy of it, and I think 
may be I can get the original. It states that the following 
gentlemen are strong friends of the United States Court, 
and every Senator and Representative of Georgia, I am sure, 
without the slightest hesitation, will concur in my opinion 
of their fitness. I suggest the names, because I presume 
you are not acquainted with the members of the Bar of this 
district. I think they are available in the order in which 
I have mentioned their names. Now, that was the point I 
wanted to ask you about; the first was Mr. Orville Park, 
the second was Mr. Malcolm Jones, the third was Mr. 
Stanley Benett, the fourth, Hon. Jos. W. Benett, fifth, Mr. 
Sam Benett and sixth, Hon. Enoch Callaway; I presume 
Mr. Akerman was seventh. 

Judge Speer: I suppose he was the seventh, then, in¬ 
stead of the sixth. I was mistaken about that. 


55 


The Chairman: Now, one more question, Judge Speer, 
if you please. 

Judge Speer: I had forgotten that fact, Mr. Chairman, 
and correct my testimony. That letter is correct. I wrote 
that letter. 

The Chairman: Now, Mr. Gazan, I believe an attorney 
here of Savannah, complained on yesterday that your pri¬ 
vate secretary, who happened at the same time to be also the 
court stenographer, Mr. Cameron, failed or refused or de¬ 
clined to send him a record in the Gray Lumber case, which 
he was anxious to take to the Court of Appeals, from your 
order, and that he could not get this record. It appears 
that this young man, Mr. Cameron, was with you almost 
constantly from the time the case was tried until the fall. 
Did you and Mr. Cameron ever talk about the preparation 
of that record for Mr. Gazan, or his client? 

Judge Speer: I do not recall that. I know that Mr. 
Cameron was in a good deal of distress along about that 
time. Mrs. Cameron was in the condition in which ladies 
love to be who love their lords, and along in the fall pre¬ 
sented him with a son, and he was deeply interested in that 
general situation. Then, also, I became very ill during the 
fall, and I was delirious for weeks and unconscious for days. 
Then this investigation coming on disorganized us all; but 
I have never attempted in any way to prevent Mr. Gazan 
from getting that record, and I am now ready to extend the 
time, if I can do so, if he desires to appeal, by any suitable 
order nunc pro tunc. 

The Chairman: That would be eminently proper, we 
think. 

Judge Speer: Yes, I would be very glad to do that. 

The Chairman: You never did discuss the furnishing 
of the record, then, with young Cameron, to Gazan? 

Judge Speer: I only recall that when I got the letter 
from Gazan, I told him to let him have the record as soon 
as he could. That is all I recollect about it. 

Mr. FitzHenry: Judge, could you by a nunc pro tunc 
order extend the time for the filing of the record in that 
case? 


56 


Judge Speer: Well, really, I do not remember the 
Statute, sir. I will do all that I can do, though. 

Mr. FitzHenry: Would you not have to make some order 
on which to predicate the nunc pro tunc act? That is a 
sealed book now. 

Judge Speer: That may be true, but the case is still 
pending and he could move to discharge the receiver and 
accomplish precisely the same result and if I overruled that 
he could have the appeal. 

Mr. FitzHenry: The case is still pending in court? 

Judge Speer: The case is still pending in court, yes. 

Mr. FitzHenry: In that Carter case, I believe it was, 
where you announced the decision that the petitioning cred¬ 
itors were too shadowy upon which to base the bankruptcy 
act, that they were not sufficient to maintain the petition,— 
that practically concluded that litigation, did it not? 

Judge Speer: I think so. That was after the hearing. 
Of course, I had to have the hearing. 

Mr. FitzHenry: You had had the hearing, had you not? 

Judge Speer: Yes, I had the hearing. 

Mr. FitzHenry: And you reached that conclusion and 
announced it from the bench? 

Judge Speer: Yes, sir, but I prefer to speak from the 
record. That is my recollection, though. 

Mr. FitzHenry: Now, upon what pretext could it have 
been proper to have impounded the books of the company 
after that decision by your Honor? 

Judge Speer: There might have been an appeal from my 
decision. My decision was not final. The petitioning cred¬ 
itors could appeal as well as the defendant. Before that, 
though, if I recall, I caused the books to be sealed. Yob 
will see this Carter Company had a number of various con¬ 
cerns, and it was charged that Mr. Isaac was becoming very 
active in bringing bankruptcy suits, and Carter’s counsel 
came to me and told me that if Isaac had access to all of the 
books, he could find out the probable or possible insolvency 
of some of the other concerns, and if he had suitable cred¬ 
itors he could put them into bankruptcy, and to prevent 


57 


anything like undue advantage, I ordered the receiver to 
seal the books, and that was done, and Mr. Talley has told 
me that that order of mine saved Carter's case. 

Mr. FitzHenry: That is what Mr. Talley told you? 

Judge Speer: Yes; he represented Carter. 

Mr. FitzHenry: The next morning, Judge, when you 
first took the matter up you announced that the impounding 
order would be granted, did you not? 

Judge Speer: I forget that. 

Mr. FitzHenry: Then did you not finally deny the 
order and dismiss the petition? 

Judge Speer: I dismissed the petition. I remember 
that. That ended the case and returned Carter's books to 
him. 

Mr. FitzHenry: Will you kindly state whether or not 
the presence of Mr. Lewis, an Examiner from the Depart¬ 
ment of Justice, in your court room, had anything to do with 
that change of your decision? 

Judge Speer: Why, Mr. Lewis has no terrors for me. 

Mr. FitzHenry: I asked you whether or not his pres¬ 
ence had anything to do with that change of your decision? 

Judge Speer: Why, nothing whatever. While this thing 
was pending, Mr. Chairman, I sent some letters—* 

Mr. FitzHenry: Well, we do not care about that, Judge. 

Judge Speer: Well, that letter shows that I did not fear 
him. 

Mr. FitzHenry: I think we have all read that, Judge. 

Judge Speer: I hope so, and I trust with some degree of 
interest. 

*The stenographer is in error in stating in this connection that Judge 
Speer testified that he sent some letters. What he said was, he had 
made an address before the Iowa Bar Association, and he started to 
read an extract from that address with reference to Examiner Lewis, 
when Mr. FitzHenry observed: “Well, we do not care about that, 
Judge.” Judge Speer added, “Well, that address shows that I did not 
fear him.” Judge Speer did not use the words “letter” or “letters” 
in either sentence. 












































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